


Sisterhood

by Transposable_Element



Category: Hainish Cycle - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Culture Shock, Epistolary, F/F, F/M, Feminist Themes, POV Outsider, Sisters, Utopia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-02-25 23:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Transposable_Element/pseuds/Transposable_Element
Summary: Pilun goes to Urras to study biology. Set 18 years afterThe Dispossessed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).



> Letters are translated from the Pravic. Words in Iotic or Terran languages are in italics. Underlining is for emphasis.
> 
> Note: This is a work in progress. Constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated! In fact, that's why I'm posting it before it's done.

Sadik, Drum Mountain, Northsetting, Anarres

_Kaiura e7 IX-963_

Gv192.R2.2.3

 _17 or 18 July, 2488 AD_ (according to the Terran friend)

The letter you sent arrived a decad ago, but I've been busy so I haven't been able to reply before today. Thank you for reassuring me about Seshap. I’m glad to know that he’s not miserable without me, like he said he would be. I think he needs to copulate with a lot more girls before he’ll be ready to partner with someone (but not with me!).

It sounds like the work you're doing on the new electrical grid is going well. How long do you think it will be before we’ll be able to send electronic messages?

I’m putting a letter in this envelope for Shevek and Takver, which you can send on to them in Liberty Bay (if they’re still there?). There is also a note for Tupagv. It seemed better to send everything in one package. I’m sorry I had to seal the envelope, but they won’t take it in the mail otherwise. The green envelope is so you can write back to me. It is a _pre-paid_ return via the _Teoia Rapid Postal Company_ , so you have to put the letter in it, otherwise it won't get to me. You don't need to seal it if you don't want to. They say they are used to Anarresti customs and will seal it according to their _regulations_ once it's on the shuttle. 

I stayed at the Terran _embassy_ longer than I had expected after finishing quarantine, but I finally moved into the dorm at Ieu Eun five days ago. I’m not sure why it took so long—it all had to do with  _money_  and  _visas—_ but it was interesting to get to know some of the Terrans better. Ambassador Keng had a stroke last year, but she seems to have recovered well. She remembers Shevek very clearly and said that meeting him 18 years ago was “revelatory.” I didn't see much of her, though. I passed most of the time with two young Terrans: Meena is one of the ansible operators, and Dmitri was helping me deal with the university and says he works at slaying paper _dragons_ (sketch in margin—they are mythical). I liked them both very much (Meena and Dmitri, not the _dragons:_ again, they are 1. Terran and 2. mythical), but I doubt I'll see them often now that I'm at the university, because it takes half a day to get to Rodarred from here.

The dorm where I live is a brand-new building. The university only began admitting women as students four years ago, and this dorm was built specially for them. It was opened to residents last year—before that all the female students lived in _rooming houses_ off campus. I don’t know what the people in charge will do if they start admitting more women to the university. Maybe they don’t plan to admit more than will fit into this dorm.

The building has four floors and I think it houses about 100 students and 20 resident _employees_ (cooks, housekeepers, _matrons_ ), although it's not completely full. The refectory and common room are on the ground floor, and the sleeping rooms are on the upper floors. There are also toilets and showers and another small common room on each of the upper floors. No baths, everybody showers here, and I got used to it while I was at the _embassy_ , but it still seems like a terrible waste of water.

The _employees_ sleep in rooms in the basement, except for the _head matron_ who lives in a suite on the ground floor. Yes, they actually make the workers live underneath the building. I went into the kitchen after supper the first day here, to see if they needed help with the dishes, and the workers just stared at me and then laughed and physically pushed me out. I haven't tried again. Shevek warned me about things like that but I have to admit I didn't believe him. I could understand it better if it was a member of the _propertied class_ who wouldn't let me in the kitchen.

I like the room I sleep in, which is on the top floor (three flights of stairs!) and is about the same size as a single in the dom in Abbenay. There's a tall, narrow window looking out on the courtyard. The walls are painted a beautiful pale blue color, and the trim around the window and doors and along the floors is painted white (I am told it is really a color called “ice,” which is actually very pale blue, but it looks white to me). It’s all very pleasant and there’s nothing especially excremental that I can see. I was afraid the bed would too soft, like Shevek said, but it isn’t, although I admit that the bedding is soft and cuddly, and there are _sheets_ and two blankets of different weights on the shelf in case I don't like the ones that are already on the bed, I suppose. What with the blue and white paint and being so high up, I feel a bit like I’m floating in the sky. I hung up the Occupation that Takver gave me next to the window, so it catches the light.

There are a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and some bookshelves for me to use, and there is a notice on the wall that says all the furniture is property of Ieu Eun University, and I will be  _fined_  for any damage! Of course if I broke something I would try to fix it or build a new one, or at least I would if I knew where to find a carpentry workshop. I don’t think there’s anything in here that I couldn’t fix if I had the tools. But I would probably have to  _pay_  for the materials. You have to  _pay money_ for everything here, even food. Everybody says I am lucky that the Hainish have  _paid_  for me to live here and study at the university. I can eat at the refectory without having to  _pay_  because that was all arranged in advance, but if I want to eat anywhere else I need to use  _money_. (I  _own money_ now! It's called a  _stipend_. I am a profiteer! It sounds like a joke, but it isn’t.)

I asked Sei, who sleeps in the room next door, why the women couldn’t just live in the same dorms with the men, and she laughed in a shocked kind of way. She said that it’s not proper for young women to copulate before  _marriage_  (even though she admitted that some of them do anyway). Of course, I knew that already—Odo wrote about it, and it seems it’s one thing that hasn’t changed much since her time. But when I asked what that has to do with living in the same building with men, Sei said that it would ruin the mystery. Does that make sense to you? I may have misunderstood because I am not as good at spoken Iotic as written, though I'm improving at both. Also, she said, a man might see her undressed, which I suppose makes some sense to avoid if you are _forbidden_ from copulating. But the women here seem to think that all men want to copulate all the time, with any woman, clothed or naked, so I’m not sure why they are so worried about being seen naked.

What makes all of this really funny is that nobody ever leaves the sleeping room naked! I did a few times, but I stopped because everybody on the floor stared and I realized they were embarrassed by it. I can hear you asking how they go down the hall to the shower without walking around naked. I’ll tell you. What they do is this: wake up in the morning, put on clothes, go down the hall to the showers, go into a shower stall, close the door, take off the clothes and hang them on a hook, take a shower, dry off, put the clothes back on, and go back to the room. And then they change into other clothes for going out. (The garment they wear to the shower is very loose and easy to take on and off, but not proper to wear outside of the dorm, apparently.) I asked Sei how a man could see her undressed even if men were living on this floor, because the man would have to go in the sleeping room or into the shower with her. She said but what if he tried to do that and I said well if you don’t want him in the room you tell him to leave. And she said easier said than done. I wondered later whether she was talking about rape? That seems far-fetched. 

I found out, by the way, that the _matrons_ have the job of making sure that no men get past the visiting room on the ground floor. There are four _matrons_ , and that really seems to be almost the entire job. They also stay with the girls in the visiting room if they have a male visitor.

I thought that since the women all live together that might mean it would be more accepted for women to copulate with each other, but when I asked Sei about this she got all red in the face, and that was the end of the conversation. It occurred to me later that perhaps she thought I wanted to copulate with her and didn’t know how to say she wasn't interested without hurting the feelings, so the next time we talked I made sure to say that wasn’t what I meant. She said well that’s not very flattering, so I asked if I should apologize. She said no, no no! and by the end of the conversation we were both laughing. We’re friends now. She says she’s going to take me out  _shopping_  for clothes. That should be interesting!

Remember how Shevek told us that women here went around with bare breasts? Sei says that fashion has changed. It was only ever women of the  _propertied class_ who did it, anyway. But now she says it’s rare to see it except at very formal events.

Also, there’s a bit of a fashion now for women to let the head hair grow. It’s mostly young women who do this because they are rebelling against _convention_. Here in the dorm about half of the girls don’t shave the head hair. There’s only one girl in the dorm besides me with really long hair—all the rest had shaven heads and are growing the hair out, but this one girl has never shaved. It has to do with her religion, but that’s all I know because she won’t talk to me. Anyway, it makes me feel a little more comfortable being with girls who have hair on the heads. (I keep calling them girls, even though they're all at least 20 years old, because that's what they call themselves. And of course they look young because they depilate the faces.)

Most of the rooms in the dorm are doubles, and it’s only some of the older students (second-year, like Sei, and beyond) who sleep in singles. The university chooses roommates for the first-years, but the crazy thing is that there’s no way to change if they don’t get along, unless they can find another pair of roommates who want to switch. I think that’s why I sleep in a single, even though I’m a first-year: they didn’t want to make some poor Urrasti girl share with me. But I don’t mind sleeping in a single here, because dealing with Urrasti all day is exhausting, and at least I can retreat to the room when I feel overwhelmed.

There are so many things here that are almost the same as on Anarres, like the pegs next to the door where people hang coats, hats, and scarves. It’s when things are similar that I’m most likely to make mistakes. A few days ago when I left the dorm I used a hat from one of the pegs. There was a big fuss when I got back because the hat turned out to _belong_ to a girl called Oem. I returned the hat to her and haven’t used it again, but she's still angry with me, and she won’t even hang the hat back up on the pegs, for fear that I’ll  _steal_  it, even though I already said I wouldn’t use it again. Since then I’ve tried to remember not to use things that  _belong_  to other girls in the dorm. It’s confusing, though, because some things, like the telephone and the books and games in the common rooms, really are for anybody to use. And the women here do  _lend_ clothing to each other sometimes.  _Lending_ is similar to sharing, but it has rules that I don't completely understand.

Sei says the problem with the hat was that I didn’t ask Oem whether I could use it. Then she said that since I didn’t know Oem well that asking would be rude, but I could have hinted that I wanted to use it and then Oem might have offered to  _lend_  it to me. I would rather not use the hat. I suppose I should  _buy_  a hat, because winter hasn’t even started and it’s getting colder every day. And then when I go back to Anarres, I will leave the hat here for anybody to use!

There’s a lot more to say, but this letter is already long and I need to practice some math for tomorrow. In the next letter I will say more about classes, which started yesterday. Before that were three days of orientation, where they showed us around the whole campus and explained how everything works and all the rules. There is a whole 70-page booklet describing the rules and the _penalties_ for violating them, including expulsion. I started reading it and discovered several rules I had already violated, so I put it away. I'm sure that if I violate a rule important enough for me to be _punished_ , somebody will tell me. 

I am taking classes in statistics, botany, and ecology, and I may also try to go to a microbiology lecture, but I don’t know if I’ll have time because I have lab work to do as well.

Last night it rained quite hard, and I lay awake listening to it falling on the roof overhead. It sounded ~~like little feet running around up there~~     ~~like somebody continuously~~    like somebody drumming with fingers on a desk. I think it rained most of the night, but it stopped before morning and when I woke up the trees and the grass in the courtyard were all wet and sparkled in the sun. There are still puddles of water 2-3 cm deep in the quad!

I’m sorry about all the Ioti words in this letter, but it’s hard to write about what it’s like here without using them.

In Sisterhood, Sister!

\--Pilun

Almost forgot! The address to write to me now is: _Avila Aea Kiie Memorial Ladies Dormitory, Ieu Eun University, Nio Esseia, A-Io_. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original Pravic, the word "rule" means something like "principle" or "guideline." It's close enough to the Ioti word meaning "rule" or "regulation" that Pilun probably didn't think there was any point in throwing in another Ioti word that Sadik would have to look up in the Pravic-Iotic dictionary published by the Syndicate of Initiative. But the Pravic meaning of the word is reflected in the sentence " _Lending_ is similar to sharing, but it has rules that I don't completely understand," and in the way that Pilun writes about violating rules rather than breaking them.
> 
> In the year IX-963 (Gv192), two of A-Io's four private postal companies are able to handle interplanetary mail, though of course they lose control of it once it arrives on Anarres. Contact between Urras and Anarres is regular enough that Pilun could expect a letter to get to Anarres in about 5-8 days, depending on the shuttle schedule. Once there, it would probably take 2-10 days to get to Sadik in Drum Mountain, 2-10 days to get back to Abbenay, and another 5-8 days to get to Urras, where it would be delivered to Pilun within a day. Thus, a return letter might arrive as quickly as 15 days or take more than 40 days, depending on how soon the recipient wrote back and whether somebody felt like carrying personal mail to and from Drum Mountain that decad. Letters to and from someone in Abbenay would be quicker because most of the delay is at the Anarresti end. No wonder Pilun looks forward to being able to send email! Ansibles are expensive to make and even more expensive to operate (they use a great deal of power at the fixed end), so they are reserved for communication across light-years. 
> 
> At the time this is set, there are about 200 Anarresti studying or working temporarily in Urras, mostly in A-Io and Benbili, but no permanent residents. Urrasti are still not allowed on Anarres, but there are Mobiles from Hain, Terra, O, Ve, and Chiffewar.


	2. Chapter 2

Sadik, Drum Mountain, Northsetting, Anarres

_Kaiura e25_

R2.4.1 (I think; I can’t find the Anarresti calendar)

Thanks for writing back so quickly! If you see the Mobile from Ve again, please thank her for carrying the letter. Otherwise who knows how long it would have taken to get to me!

I miss you. Everything is strange here. I am just about acclimated to the gravity and oxygen, though.

I'm enclosing more letters for people. I hope you don't mind sending them on. You're the only person who's been writing to me, so I don't know whether any of the others have moved to a new posting.  

You asked about eating meat: actually I haven’t! It didn’t come up while I was at the Terran  _embassy_ because the Terrans don’t eat land animals, though they do sometimes eat fish and invertebrates. Terra has a  lot of _insects_ , which are small land invertebrates, and which are one of the major sources of protein in the Terran diet, but most of the large animals are extinct, and the species that survive are strictly protected. The ones that die naturally are left for detritivores so as to keep the nutrients cycling in what's left of the ecosystem. After I moved to the dorm I was expecting that I’d be served meat and would have to decide what to do about it, but it turns out the refectory doesn’t often have it because too much meat is believed to be unhealthy for women. They think it makes women too aggressive or something. It sounds like psuedo-science to me. But anyway, I am having no trouble keeping to a vegetarian diet (even more than usual, in fact, because they don't often serve fish).

The food in the refectory is very good. The other girls complain about it, but there’s amazing variety and there are high-protein and high-fat foods at every meal, and often fruit or fruit juice; also sweet breads and cakes, which are mostly too sweet for me. One thing they serve a lot here is birds’ eggs, which take some getting used to because of the texture, which can be spongy or rubbery or gooey, depending on how they’re cooked. One favorite new food is _ovovea_ , a high-protein Urrasti tuber. I did some research at the library here (which is amazing), and I think it will grow well on Anarres if we can get the soil conditions right. If you're still in touch with Kvigot, could you mention it to him and suggest that he ask his contacts in Benbili about it? Otherwise, I will write to him.

The leaves on the trees in the courtyard outside the window are turning colors. Two decads ago they were just starting to turn from green to yellow, and now they’re all yellow and orange and flame red and purple. And there are so many of them! Soon the leaves will start to fall, and Sei says that they make a nice sound when you crunch them underfoot. I said I was skeptical and she laughed.

All of the lectures and labs are fascinating and make me feel sure that coming here to study was the right decision, no matter what Takver says. The Urrasti have made tremendous advances in biology since the founding of Anarres. We have lost a lot by cutting ourselves off from the interplay of ideas. And of course there is so much more biology to study here, so much more complexity and variety, so much more sheer biomass! This is science I hope we can use to increase diversity in the Anarresti ecosystem and make it less vulnerable to drought and other kinds of environmental stress.

I decided to drop the microbiology lecture when I realized it didn’t make sense to do it without the lab, but I will probably try to take the full class with the lab next quarter. Statistics is fun, and botany is fascinating. Oem, the girl I _stole_ the hat from, is in the botany class with me, in fact she's the only woman in any classes with me. We are lab partners for botany. She says we have to stick together and has apologized for making such a fuss about the hat.

There’s a Terran student in the ecology class, Francisco, who has been telling me about the work they’re doing on Terra to restore the environment. It’s a huge task. Terra is about the same size as Urras, but has almost 50% more land mass. The Terrans wrecked the ecology and they have spent the last 400 (?) years working to make the planet more habitable. The temperature rose due to carbon pollution and a lot of the land is polluted with toxic chemicals and heavy metals (the ancestors must have been idiots), so now some of the most useful land is in the extreme north and south, where it’s cooler and historically less populated, so the soils are in better condition. The problem is that they have an axial tilt even more extreme than Urras (24 degrees!) so seasonal differences are dramatic, especially near the poles. The work they’re doing is very exciting, and in some ways is not that different from what I would like to see us do on Anarres. But the scale of it is so enormous it’s hard to fathom. All I want is one island to work on! Just one little island!

The Terran friend Dmitri came to visit about a _week_ ago (a _week_ =7 days). It was good to see him but the whole thing was overcomplicated because of course he couldn’t come up to the sleeping room. He had to sleep at the Guest Hostel, which is halfway across campus (and it's a big campus). When I first came here I would have just invited him up to the room anyway, but now I know that I would be risking getting expelled from the university. Also, I didn’t realize until he was visiting that the dorm has something called a _curfew_. I had thought it was just like lights-out time at the dom, where they don’t want you coming in late because you might disturb somebody. But it’s actually a very strict rule, and if you’re out late there is terrible trouble. Last year a girl got expelled for being out overnight without _permission_. That’s bad enough, but the really unfair thing is that the men don’t have a _curfew_ , only the women do! It’s a good thing I realized this in time (should have read the rule book more carefully), or I might have tried to stay with Dmitri at the Hostel. It was frustrating, because we wanted to copulate, and there was just no way to get privacy without going into the city and _renting_ a room in a _hotel_ , which neither of us wanted to do. But it was good to see him.

It’s funny that some of the best friends I have made here so far are Terrans. You’d think I’d have less in common with them than with Ioti, because they are a different subspecies and Terran society seems to be far more authoritarian even than the _State_ of Thu. The way they all describe it, they have no freedom at all on Terra, the _central government_ decides everything—where they live, what kind of work they do, whether they have children, whether the children stay with them after they’re born. The _government_ can order a person  to move halfway around the world with only a day or two of notice, leaving the partner and all of the friends behind, and they can't refuse the posting and it may be permanent.  But they aren’t propertarians. They feel the same way we do about excess. Dmitri is always complaining about conspicuous consumption by the Ioti _propertied class_. And when they’re here, away from the _authority_ of the Terran _government_ , they seem to flourish. They appreciate freedom; they crave it. They’re also a lot less stupid about copulation than the Ioti, though Francisco tells me that wasn’t always the case, historically. And, of course, we’re all aliens in this society.

A lot of the girls in the dorm make a Terran drink called _chocolatl_ in the sleeping rooms. (They use small battery-operated kettles that I think could be useful on Anarres.) Dmitri says  _chocolatl_ is the one thing from Terra that everybody likes. It’s made from the seeds of the _cacao_ plant, which went extinct about 400 years ago, but apparently one of the few intelligent things the Old Terrans did was to set up a seed _bank_ in case of extinction of vital crops. _Chocolatl_ is a _luxury_ , so they hadn’t tried to grow _cacao_ from the seeds in the _bank_ , but when the Hainish arrived they gave them some of the seeds as part of a diplomatic exchange (I think?). Anyway, now _cacao_ is grown here and on Hain and on O, and maybe other planets. The drink is thick and bitter, but you can add sugar if you like, and some people add spices. Somehow all the flavors together, even the bitterness, are just amazing: rich and deep and satisfying. It has a beautiful smell, too, and it draws me down the hallway to whoever is making it! Maybe I will be able to bring some with me when I go back to Anarres. Unfortunately it would be impossible to grow _cacao_ on Anarres, and anyway I can’t imagine anybody would think it worthwhile to use the resources to make _chocolatl,_ because it’s quite a complex process. Even in a land of abundance it’s a _luxury_. I suppose that makes it excremental, but I don’t care!

Speaking of excrement, I went to central Nio Esseia with Sei a few days ago, to go _shopping_ for clothes. Sei kept talking about it, so finally I agreed to go. I was anxious, and I told her what Shevek said about the nightmare street (which is actually called _Saemtenevia Prospect_ ). I was afraid she would laugh, but she was very nice about it and said she grew up in a small town in the countryside and that last year she was overwhelmed the first few times she went into the city. She also said she wouldn’t have taken me to that district anyway because it was too stuffy and _overpriced_. Instead, she took me to a place in the Reis Quarter, which is on the northwest side of the city, near the river. She found out about it last year from a girl in the dorm who grew up in Nio Esseia. It’s mostly dwellings, and it’s very pretty with lots of trees. There’s one street where there are _shops_ and places to eat and a little theater, and it was actually very pleasant. 

I would have just taken the first thing off the rack that fit, but Sei said to be careful because some fabrics would wear better than others. I’m so used to everything being made of holum fiber that it didn’t even occur to me. Just in this one _shop_ there was cloth made from fibers from several different kinds of plants, from animal hair (they harvest it without harming the animals), from spider silk (which is too _expensive_ for a student), or from artificial polymers,  or from a combination! Some of these fibers require very special care—they have to be washed at the right temperature with special soaps, or they have to be steam cleaned, or I’m not sure what else. I made sure we picked out fibers that are easy to take care of. For one thing, I don’t do the laundry, the housekeepers at the dorm do it, and it seems worse to make them take a lot of trouble over my clothes.

Anyway, I now have two new suits and a dress. The suits are very similar in shape—long-sleeved tunics that come down to mid-calf (or on me just below the knee), narrowed a little at the waist and then flaring out slightly, with very narrow pants, almost like leggings, but not so clingy. The cut is not that different from an Anarresti suit, except that the tunic is so long and has more shape to it, and the pants are not so baggy. One suit is made of medium-weight fiber, much softer than any holum fiber I’ve ever seen. The tunic is green and the pants are a paler green, and it has a neck opening shaped like a V in front with a lace to tie it closed, but Sei says it’s meant to be left open. The other suit is a little heavier, for colder weather, and it has a dark red tunic with a high neck and silvery-gray pants and buttons up the back. Both suits are made of the same kind of plant fiber and are very comfortable.

The dress is very dark blue and made of an artificial fiber that mimics silk. It has long tight sleeves and is tight around the torso ( _bodice_ , Sei says) and has a hidden _zipper_ on the side, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get in and out of it. The skirt comes all the way down to the tops of my feet, and I was surprised to find a dress so long, but Sei says it's designed to be worn with high heels. It's also very full and has a lot of fabric that swishes around the legs when I walk. It’s distracting! Not to mention it's about four times as much fabric as I would need just to cover the legs, which seems wasteful. Sei made me _buy_  an garment called a _petticoat_ to wear underneath it. This is like a skirt, but made of layers of stiff material, so it makes the dress stick out sort of like a cone around the legs (but also keeps the skirt from tangling, so that's good). The dress is very different from most of the ones I saw women wearing in the city, but Sei says it’s a style that’s very popular with younger women, called _minimalist_ : unadorned, with no trim or ornaments or fancy stitching. Just, you know, a lot of fabric! I can see that it’s plain compared to some of the things people wear here, but it's still completely impractical.

The suits are to wear to class and the dress is to wear when I go into the city in the evening or if I get invited to a party. Sei also helped me find a good warm coat (brown _wool_ ), and an _umbrella_  to keep off the rain, and two pairs of shoes, one to wear with the dress and one for everything else. There were no high heels in my size, and she said it's just as well, you’re so tall already, you don’t want to be taller than the men. (Actually, I am taller than quite a few of the men here.) All together the things I _bought_ _cost_ about half the  _stipend_ for the year. It was good to get it all done, so I won't need to go _shopping_ again. Sei said she was pleased that she had found me some good _bargains_. She also _bought_ a couple of presents for me: a matching hat and scarf as well as a robe to wear when I go to the showers. That’s right: I  _own_ a garment to wear just for walking up and down the hallway in the dorm!

I can’t believe I just wrote ~~three~~ four whole paragraphs about clothes. I am such a propertarian! Maybe even a body profiteer! I am drowning in excrement! Next time I see Dmitri he will probably accuse me of conspicuous consumption....

I feel uncomfortable about  _owning_ all these clothes (I am looking at them now, all hung up in the wardrobe with the Anarresti suit next to them looking very drab and forlorn, knowing it will only be worn for things like field studies or going hiking), and yet they are beautiful and feel nice and are very well-made and will last a long time, especially since I won’t be wearing the same outfit every day. Please don’t judge me! I can’t imagine wearing any of them on Anarres except perhaps the red and gray suit, but I could give them to a theater troupe. I will probably just leave them here, though, because they wouldn’t all fit in the case. Sei says she will take a photograph of me wearing the dress to send to you. But you’ll have to promise not to show it to Takver! I don’t need more lectures from her.

The day we went _shopping_  I found out that there are a lot of buildings in the city that are completely closedto women. It used to be like that at Ieu Eun; women were _permitted_ only in the Great Reception Hall and the _chapel_ and some of the refectories, and then only on special occasions. There are still some parts of the campus where women aren’t allowed, like the College of Noble Science, the Conservatory of Music, and all of the men's dorms (including the Senior Faculty House, where Shevek lived while he was here!).

All of the professors at the university are men, and since there are 3,000 faculty and staff and 14,000 students here, and only about 100 of the students are women, you can infer that nearly all of the people I see on campus are men. About half of the female students are studying _economics_ , which for some reason is considered a “feminine” subject. Most of the rest are studying literature or history; there are only four of us in the sciences, all biology and chemistry. Women are not admitted to the College of Noble Science (obviously, since women aren't allowed in the building) or the College of Arts, or the Musical Conservatory (ditto). I never go to _chapel_ , although I hear the music every morning. But hearing it makes me angry because I know that if I wanted to join in I would not be allowed. Going to chapel used to be _compulsory_  for students, but fortunately that was changed a few years ago. If I was _required_ to go I'm not sure I could stop myself from singing along. Sometimes I do anyway, and if anybody is nearby they are shocked.

There are a lot of things women aren't _allowed_ to do in the _nation_ of A-Io. I can't even remember them all, and it's depressing to think about. But things are changing. Sei says some _laws_ are being changed to give women more _rights_ , but it’s going slowly and a lot of people are angry about it. She says quote things began to change when the _progressive internationalist party_ made a _power-sharing_ agreement in the _senate_ with the _socialist workers party_ and the _trade unionist party_ , unquote. (I had to write that all down and show it to Sei to make sure I had it all correct.) She said that was the same year the first ansible was made, so about 13 years ago. Isn't that about when they stopped talking about _extraditing_ Shevek to A-Io to be _tried_ for…what was it?   ~~Rioting~~   Insurrection and incitement to violence or something? 

Sei thinks the university started admitting women because they knew that they might have to do soon it anyway. She tried to explain it to me, but it had to do with _laws_ and _court cases_ , and unfortunately I am unable to really listen or concentrate when people talk about things like that, they might as well be saying er er er er. But basically (she says), the university thought they might as well admit women before they were forced to, so as to get good _publicity_ (which is a bit like having a good reputation).

I think this letter is even longer than the last one! I blame the clothes, which Sei says I was required by _law_ to describe to you in minute detail. In case you're wondering, yes, that was a joke. She flopped down on the bed giggling after she said it.

Reading through the letter again I see I still haven’t said much about classes, but I wrote more about them in the letter to Takver, so if you want to know you can read that letter before you send it on.

This letter is just for you, though. Please don't show it to anybody else, especially Takver.

Your Sister, Pilun

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re the situation on Earth: In _The Dispossessed_ , Ambassador Keng says that when the Hainish arrived,
>
>> ...we had saved what could be saved, and made a kind of life in the ruins, on Terra, in the only way it could be done: by total centralization. total control over the use of every acre of land, every scrap of metal, every ounce of fuel. Total rationing, birth control, euthanasia, universal conscription into the labor force. 
> 
> In a later story, "The Shobies' Story," which is set some time after _The Dispossessed_ (enough time for Shevekian physics to have been surpassed by Churten Theory), there are still Terran "reclamation communes," and life is still regimented. The Terran and Anarresti characters in the story share similar discomfort with excess and luxury:
>
>> Tai, Betton, and Shan, new from Terra, and Gveter from Anarres, accustomed to the barracks and the cummunal austerities of their marginally habitable worlds, stalked about the Shoby, disapproving it. "Excremental," Gveter growled. "Luxury!" Tai sneered.
> 
> Pilun's green suit probably looks something like [this](https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/UT8eESiXB0aXXagOFbXn/Simple-designs-salwar-kameez-Salwar-kameez-and.jpg), but without the embroidery.


	3. Chapter 3

Sadik, Drum Mountain, Northsetting, Anarres

_Kaiura e49_

R2.6.5. I checked.

Fine, then I won’t show you the picture of me wearing the dress. I will cut it into little pieces the next chance I get. (Actually the picture hasn’t been taken yet, and now it never will be.)

The letter you sent arrived at a very bad moment, and it was very hurtful. I’m almost afraid to read it again, but I hope that if I reread it when I’m not feeling upset about other things, then it won’t seem so cruel. But I suppose I understand why you found the letter so disturbing. It's just that there are a lot of uncomfortable pressures on me here that I can't figure out how to deal with, and if I can't tell you about them, then who can I tell? So for now I'm just going to pretend that I never read the letter. I hope you can put up with all the egoizing.

I haven’t had a letter from Shevek or Takver yet, but maybe they didn’t get the letters I sent before they moved back to Abbenay. I can’t believe they went back there, I thought they said they were through with Abbenay forever!

This letter is also private to you. Really, seriously. Don't tell the parents.

It’s been four decads since classes started, and I am settling in. When I’m working, I am still certain that I was right to come here to study. Biology here is much more advanced, and though I have a good grounding I have to work hard to keep up. That helps to occupy the mind. But sometimes I wonder how I’m going to last three whole years here.

Shevek told us so much about Urras that I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. He’s such an abstract thinker, though, and I never realized how little of what he said was useful information. I also hadn’t understood how completely different life here is for women and young people than for a widely respected middle-aged man (Shevek). It’s like a whole different planet! Remember how he told us about people deferring to him all the time, treating him as a superior, and how disturbing that was? Believe me, for me that is not often a problem! And now I wonder if Shevek might have been egoizing a little.

There is a _hierarchy_ here, an arrangement where everybody is either above or below each other person, and I am pretty far down in it and sometimes feel like I’m being trampled. Although of course most of the people I meet are _privileged_ to attend the university, and many of them are members of the _propertied class_. So I’m floating on a cloud, but I’m near the bottom of the cloud, I guess. I know there are lots of people down on the ground below, but except for the cooks and housekeepers and other campus _employees_ , I never see them. So please don’t lecture me about how well off I am; I know it’s true, and it has no bearing at all on the problems I’m having.

I’m beginning to understand some aspects of Odo’s life that never made very much sense to me before, especially some of the things she wrote about the sexes. All of the girls here in the dorm are so afraid of men. That’s not how they think of it, because to them it’s normal not to trust men, to think of them almost as a different species. They lie to men constantly out of self-preservation, and yet they depend on them because there are so many things women can’t do here. A grown woman here has less to say about how she lives than a 12-year-old Anarresti. For example, an Ioti woman can’t travel outside the country of A-Io without the _permission_ of the  _guardian_ (a male relative, usually the father, or if the woman is _married_ , the husband). Women can work, but only if the guardian agrees, and any _money_ they _earn_ is controlled by the guardian. Women can only _own_ certain kinds of property; I know that doesn’t sound bad, but it’s one of the main reasons women here can’t just strike out on their own and live the way they want to: because  they have nowhere to live unless a man says they can live in his house.

The only women who don’t have guardians are _unmarried_ or _widowed_ women over 30. Technically, they are the _wards_ of the _state_ , but apparently the _state_ isn’t very interested in them and lets them mostly do as they want (as long as they don't get caught breaking any laws, Sei says). I asked Sei why any woman ever gets _married_ , and she said well there’s tremendous pressure from family, and if you don’t _marry_ you can’t have children. I said well you could if you wanted and she said no, if you have a child without being _married_ , the family or the _government_ takes it away. The girls in the dorm are always fighting with their families over what they are allowed to do—and keep in mind that these are the girls whose families agreed to let them go to Ieu Eun. So these are  unusually egalitarian families.

I think I mentioned that the only other woman in any classes with me is Oem, the girl I _stole_ the hat from. She is friendlier to me now. She and I are partners in botany lab, and I honestly don’t know what I would do otherwise, because I don’t know if any of the men would agree to be partners with me. Maybe the professor would force one of them to work with me, and that would be awful. But Oem is very good at lab and I think we work together well.

I have stopped trying to answer when professors ask questions of the class, because they never choose me to answer even when I’m the only one with a hand up. You’re supposed to wait until the professor says you can speak, but once in statistics I tried just talking anyway and everybody turned around and looked at me with shocked or disgusted expressions, and the professor talked over me until I gave up. After class the professor told me that if I did anything like that again he would throw me out of the class. And he could do it. It's his class. So I shut up. I'm not pleased with myself, but in the circumstance would continuing to try to talk be egoizing? I don't know. By the way, later that day was when I read the letter you sent.

Sometimes groups of students gather to talk after class, and unless I’m with Francisco I am not welcome in those conversations, either. (And sometimes not even then. Francisco is almost as unpopular as I am.) I can be standing right there in a circle with the others and nobody looks at me, and if I say something either they interrupt or they completely ignore me. There is nothing like a dead silence after you’ve made a comment to make you feel like a nothing. I’m being treated like a nuchnibi, except worse because it’s not because of anything I’ve done or haven’t done; it’s because of who I am. It’s because I’m a woman. And an Anarresti. But mostly because I’m a woman.

In ecology we have field studies instead of lab. Our first field study is scheduled for next _week_. We’re supposed to be doing ecosystem species surveys in groups of five. Francisco is trying to find some other students willing to work with him and me. He only needs to find three men in a class of 200!

I know I said the girls in the dorm are afraid of men, and they are, but they are also amazingly brave, to be coming here to study where they’re only barely tolerated.

Somebody on this floor is making _chocolatl_ , and I'm going to find out who it is and whether they will share.

 

Written later:

Two friendly long(ish)-haired second-years, Oevi and Iini, girls I barely know, kindly shared their _chocolatl_ with me! Next time I am tempted to complain about grasping, propertarian Urrasti I will have to remind myself of this evening.

So now I am feeling better and willing to admit that it's not all terrible here. There are a lot of people and things that I like.

A few days ago Sei and I went for a long walk in a park on the edge of campus. It was so green and the air smelled amazing—alive, like it does in a greenhouse, only cooler and even more complex. I really can’t describe it. There are some very tall trees in the park, with trunks as wide as outstretched arms. Sei says they are 800 years old, so they were already old trees when Odo was alive!

I see animals every day. There are little mammals that climb around in the trees and jump from branch to branch, and there are similar ones that scurry along on the ground. There are others that come out only at night. One evening when I was walking back to the dorm (just ahead of _curfew_!) I saw a pair of eyes shining out at me from among the trees. Oem said it was probably a predator called a _roed_ , which is a tetrapod about human knee height or a little taller, that preys on smaller mammals and birds. There’s another larger animal that moves around campus through the drainage tunnels that carry away the rain from the streets and paved pathways. The other girls say they are _vermin_ , but it’s wonderful to think about all of these little lives everywhere around us, even inside the walls of buildings.

Some people have _pets_ , which are animals that live with them. They are not _permitted_ in the dorm, but there’s a girl on the second floor, Aisi, who has a secret _pet_ , a small animal called a _veoxi._ It’s a predator, related to the _roed_ but smaller, about as long as the forearm, not counting the tail (which is almost as long as its body). It has fine, soft fur all over, like an Anarresti (!), and it’s very sleek, with a long slim body and a long tail, and she calls it Sewa, which means something like sweetheart. It lets me stroke it, but I haven’t yet convinced it to climb onto the arm and sit on the shoulder, as it does with Aisi. Sewa lives in the room but when the _matron_ is away from the floor Aisi lets it (her?) out so it (she?) can run up and down the hall. The only trouble is that Aisi says that Sewa  _belongs_ to her. She literally says that she _owns_ it. But she also says she loves it (her?).

It's very confusing how people talk about animals here. Sometimes they have gender and sometimes they don't.

There are birds everywhere, great _flocks_ of them! Sometimes they land a few meters away from me, but if I try to get closer they leap into the air in an instant and fly away. Sei says next time we go to the park we should scatter some birdseed and they will come closer. There are scientists here who do nothing but study one particular species of bird! Sei says the birds here are very drab compared to the ones in the southern part of the country, where she grew up. She showed me some photographs of birds with amazing beautiful plumage—bright iridescent greens and blues and reds. At first I couldn’t believe that they were real, I thought the colors had to be faked. Sei said would I lie to you? At that moment I had to admit to myself that I might not have been telling the truth when I said I wasn’t attracted to her. I really like Sei.

I’m sorry the last letter upset you. But I don’t want to censor myself because there’s really nobody here who understands me as you do, so I hope you can put up with such un-Odonian ramblings. I will try not to talk about my excremental clothes again.

I hope you get reposted to Abbenay like you wanted.

\-- Pilun

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sewa is Oiie's wife in _The Dispossessed_. It seems in character for her to be un-ironically named "sweetheart."


	4. Chapter 4

Sadik, District Ro, Abbenay, Anarres

_Kaiura e68_

~~R2.8.5~~   R.2.8.4

Very clever! I got a letter from Takver a couple days ago saying that you had told her that I was having a hard time, but you didn’t say why. Well, I appreciate it, but you're not going to get out of writing to me, too! She told me you had just been reposted to Abbenay, so I suppose you've been busy.

It was a very careful letter. I think she is trying to understand why I think the work I’m doing here (or am being educated to do) is so important, and she was obviously trying to be open-minded about it. She has stopped saying that I want to wreck the ecology of Anarres and destroy Odonian society. It’s a start. Shevek wrote a little bit at the bottom of the page, mostly the usual windy, portentous moralizing. And before you get upset and rush to defend him, of course I realize that’s unfair: it wasn’t really all that portentous.

I am again enclosing a letter to Shevek and Takver, but this letter to you is private. I don’t want them to worry. I don’t mean to worry you, either. I’m fine. Or I will be fine. But I'm troubled.

There are men here who want to copulate with me. Ordinarily you might be getting a good gossip about new lovers, but unfortunately this is not good at all.

One of the men is Ruedda, the statistics professor (yes, the one who threatened to throw me out of the class if I didn’t keep quiet!). About two _weeks_ ago (1.5 decads) he started telling me to stay after class, but instead of talking about statistics he asked me questions about the position of women on Anarres, but in a very unpleasant way, and he kept steering the conversation toward copulation, asking some quite specific questions: how old are girls and boys when they start copulating? and how many boys do girls copulate with before they settle down, roughly? do girls copulate with older men, or only boys their own age? That kind of thing. Ordinarily I wouldn't mind, but there was something about the way he was asking that made it all seem shameful. It was very awkward.

Then a _week_ ago he wanted me to go with him to his office so he could _lend_ me a book that I didn’t even want, and when I said I didn’t think that was allowed (it isn’t), he said rules are made to be broken.

Rules are made to be broken. This is actually a common refrain here. If they’re made to be broken, then why make the rule in the first place? (Actually, I know the main reason: It's so that the people with _power_ and property can _pay_  to flout the rules that everybody else has to obey.)

I was wondering whether I was interpreting this behavior correctly, so I asked Sei what she thought was going on, and she said that she wasn’t sure but that it was better not to take either the risk of being alone with him or the risk of refusing to be alone with him. She said that it could be really serious, that he might try to make a _bargain_ like threatening to bar me from the class if I wouldn't copulate with him. The fact that this idea had already occurred to me should tell you a lot about how things are here. Sei has started coming to meet me after statistics lectures, which is very sweet because she doesn’t have any classes in that part of campus. She waits outside the door and then pops in as soon as class is over. If Sei is with me Prof Ruedda can’t even  ask me to go to his office again. So for the moment that situation is under control. I hope.

I told Sei that Ruedda doesn’t even like me, so I don’t understand why he wants to copulate, and she said it’s because a lot of men think Anarresti women are _fast_. That doesn’t sound bad, but Sei says it is, it means a woman who will copulate with anybody. I don't think I know anybody like that, not even Gvilag! Sei tried to explain why Ruedda might think that, but by that time I was tired and confused. I'm going to reread Odo's essay on  _prostitution_ and the _ruined_ woman. Maybe that will explain it.

I've already decided not to take statistics next term, since Ruedda is the only professor teaching at this level. I think I can learn what I need to learn out of books, or maybe I will be able to find a study group that will take me. I’ve decided that I want to eventually focus on microbial ecology. The bits we've been doing in the introductory ecology class have been fascinating. I think the research will be extremely useful in preparing soils to introduce more diverse vegetation to Anarres, and also to improve and increase the crops we're growing now. You really can’t do anything without a robust microbial ecosystem. Oem is also taking introductory microbiology next term, and she thinks we can make sure that we are in the same lab section together. This is a huge relief, because the introductory microbiology course is what they call a _pre-requisite_ for other courses that I want to take, even though I have already studied microbiology for two years at Northsetting and it will probably be mostly review for me. But then again there might be more to it than I anticipate. I hope so, because I hate marking time.

I wish I could say that the trouble with Ruedda is the worst thing that has happened to me recently, but it's not. I had a very troubling experience with a man named Paii who was in the survey group for ecology (with Francisco and two others). I thought he was a friend, and I was so pleased to be friends with an Ioti man! But then a few days ago (two days after Ruedda wanted me to come to his office) Paii and I were having dinner in one of the men’s refectories. He wanted me to go to his room to copulate—I’m not allowed in the men’s dorms, but apparently that’s another rule that can be broken if you know how—and he became very obnoxious when I didn’t want to. He said that the way I had been acting so friendly had made him sure that I would copulate with him and he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t. I explained that I liked him but I wasn’t attracted to him, but he kept asking why not? as though there must be some other answer! And finally I said, I don’t want to, what else is there to say? which didn’t help. Then he said that I _owed_ it to him. This made me angrier, and we had a very loud argument in the refectory. At least, I was yelling, but he kept trying to get me to quiet down because he said we shouldn’t be talking about copulation in public.

I got up to leave and he followed me and said that an ugly hairy girl like me should be grateful for the attention, and I got so angry I hit him. In the chest, not hard, but I guess it caught him off-guard because he staggered backwards and almost fell. And then this awful silence fell all around us, and all the men in the refectory were looking at me, and I remembered that here people can get _arrested_ and put in _prison_  for hitting someone. Paii grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of there, and I let him. I was terrified at first that he was taking me to the police, but instead he started to walk me toward the women’s dorm. By that point I was so frightened that I was having trouble walking. I asked him if he was going to turn me in to the police, and he laughed in a very nasty way and said of course not. He left me with the _matron_ , and I went up to the room and cried. I had really thought we were friends.

Sei was shocked when I told her what happened. She said it sounded like Paii was _out of line_ , but she also thought it was awful of me to hit him. I didn’t hit him hard, just a poke, more like a push, really. She said it would have been better if I’d slapped him on the face, which would have hurt him a lot more, but is, apparently, more of a _feminine_ way to fight. I don’t understand any of this.

I don’t understand any of this!

I will never understand any of this!

Sei says that nobody would put me in _prison_  for hitting a man in the chest like that. At worst I would have to _pay_ a _fine_ , or I would be given _probation_ , which means that the _police_ would be watch me carefully for a while to make sure I didn't break any more _laws_. It’s only if you really damage someone that they put you in _prison_ , and even then maybe not, depending on the situation. For example, hitting someone or even killing them in self-defense is not _illegal_. (It’s kind of horrifying to think of defending yourself against someone trying to kill you. I know it happens, but here they talk about it like it’s something that  everybody has to be prepared to do.)

I half expected Paii to apologize to me the next time we saw each other. I was all prepared to apologize for hitting him. But he won’t speak to me at all now. He won’t even look me in the eye. We both go to the ecology lecture, and he just ignores me like I’m not even there. It’s as though the anger is something he _owns_ and won’t give up, even though it’s hurting him. It’s the most excremental thing I’ve seen since I’ve been here.

I told Francisco about it, and he said that men are _pigs_ (an extinct Terran animal, and apparently not a nice one). I pointed out that he’s a man, and he said but I’m homosexual. He used the Pravic word, which I taught him, because I’m one of the few people who know this about him and he's really worried about people finding out. Homosexuality is very frowned upon here and if it were found out he would get (you guessed it) expelled and would only avoid prison because he has the protection of the Terran _embassy_. I said but you’re still a man and he said not according to these _pigs_. He was angry. I think he’s been having a hard time, too.

One of the girls in the dorm said that it’s no good trying to be friends with men because all they really want is to copulate. It’s so strange that she can think that, and at the same time believe (as most people here do), that men do all the really important intellectual work in this society. It makes no sense.

 

_Kaiura e70_

R.2.8.6

I am rereading Odo’s essays on sex equality, but everything she says seems obvious and even a little old-fashioned, and she assumes the reader knows all the social systems that she’s criticizing. Sei suggested a while ago that I might learn more about Ioti society by reading novels (she is studying literature). I am now reading a novel by Ove Aea, a writer Sei admires a great deal. Aea died about 40 years ago, and according to Sei is the first truly great woman author in Iotic. Also, she never _married_ , which Sei thinks is very brave. I may have started reading the book before the last letter to you, but I don't think I mentioned it. It's called The River Walk, but I’m halfway through it and I still haven’t figured out why it’s called that. Of course it's in Iotic, so it's slow going, but reading it is helping me learn the language. I feel like I've gone from understanding Iotic in two dimensions to understanding it in three, if that makes sense.

The novel is mainly about a woman who _marries_ a man she doesn’t know very well, and then over time finds out more and more awful things about him, but because of _marriage laws_ , she can’t leave him. And there are lots of other characters and plots and they interweave with the main plot. It is beautifully written—the language is very subtle, and she writes in tremendous detail about how every person in the story feels (I have learned a lot of new vocabulary)—but it makes me sad, because all the characters are so miserable! I can see why Sei likes it, because it’s extremely clever the way the author gets inside each character’s head and you can see the same events happening from different perspectives. It helps you understand why even the worst and cruelest characters in the story behave the way they do—how they see things and what the motivations are. And I can see that in a way it’s critical of the role of women in society, because it shows how unfair it is through the things that happen to the characters. But, though I would never say so to Sei, I’m more and more convinced that it’s fundamentally excremental. It shows how awful power structures are, but it seems to assume that there’s nothing to do about it, and it will never change. There’s even a scene where some of the female characters are talking about Odonian theories about the sexes and dismissing them as unrealistic.

By the way, I finally realized why all the girls in the dorm are afraid of men: they’re afraid of being raped. Some girls in the dorm were talking about it, and they said that every woman knows someone who has been raped. I said I didn’t and they looked at each other in this uncomfortable way and said that there were women in the dorm who had been raped. I don’t know who they are, but more than one, it sounds like. They wouldn't tell me who. Later it occurred to me to wonder what happens here to rapists. From what they said, the girls don't seem to expect rapists to be _punished_. Do they not get put in _prison_? But supposedly there are so many of them? I wonder if it is really the case that rape is common here, or whether it's just that women are taught to be afraid of it? 

During this same conversation I found out that it is _illegal_ for _unmarried_ women to _buy_ contraceptives. (I notice that the more Iotic words I have to put in a sentence, the crazier the sentence becomes.) They were talking about how to get contraceptives from _married_ friends or the _black market_. I asked why it’s _illegal_ and they said that it was to prevent _unmarried_ women from copulating. But they do anyway! I think probably a third of the girls in the dorm have copulated with at least one man. So I said it seems more like the purpose of making it _illegal_ is to shame people for copulating, and they agreed that was true, too. I also asked about copulating without having intercourse, so you wouldn’t get pregnant, and they all laughed and said they didn’t think very many men would be willing to go along with that (this was when the discussion about rape began). Abortion is _illegal_ too. Of course. But you can abort if you _pay_ enough _money_. Of course.

It’s horrible, the way they make rules and _laws_ here that people don’t _obey_ , and that they know people won’t _obey_. The rules are made not only to say what people can and cannot do, but to manipulate people's feelings. There are a lot of people here who are very cynical. And of course you can _pay money_ to get out of almost anything. Maybe that's what the rapists do, if they are _wealthy_. I suppose that means that men of the _propertied class_ are more dangerous to women than men of the _unpropertied class_.

I don't understand how any woman here can be friends or lovers with a man. I realize this is not the Pilun you know, but right now the idea of copulating with an Ioti man seems horrible. I just can’t imagine how I would manage it, even if I wanted to, which I also can’t imagine. I suppose I could go visit Dmitri, but he might not be too pleased if I suddenly showed up at the _embassy_  for the express purpose of copulating. Besides, it would feel too much like seeking asylum: Please shield me I am a political refugee in dire need of copulation!

There are some girls here that I’m attracted to, but I don’t think any of them want to copulate with me, or if they do, they’re very shy. Also, from what Francisco tells me it is probably another thing that's _prohibited,_ although attitudes about male homosexuality and female homosexuality are a bit different. But that might explain why Sei reacted the way she did when I asked her about it.

Ugh, I can't think about this any more!

I _bought_ some _chocolatl_ in Nio Esseia earlier today (it's free day), and I’m going to see who else on the floor wants to share it. Probably everybody, so I hope there’s enough!

In Sisterhood,

Pilun

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In Pravic, "rules are made to be broken" sounds even more cynical, something like "principles are made to be destroyed."


	5. Chapter 5

Sadik, District Ro, Domicile 7, Abbenay, Anarres

 _Kaiusa_ _e78_

R2.9.4

Thanks, and I didn’t mean to make you feel so bad about the letter. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was egoizing, and I did need a reminder of Odonian principle. It was just luck that it arrived at such a bad moment. 

I need that perspective more than ever now. It’s just as well you’re in Abbenay, because the post will be quicker and more reliable.

I know you hadn’t gotten the last letter before you wrote, but by the time you get this you will have read it, so perhaps you will understand why I am starting to feel that I am angry at all men.

It’s stupid. It’s unjust. It makes no sense. I know that it’s stupid and unjust and makes no sense, but I can’t seem to help it. Here's an example of how stupid it is: Dmitri hasn't come to see me again, and I'm angry because I think maybe it's because he doesn't care about seeing me if we can't copulate. But if I think about it honestly, there are lots of other possibilities. He could be busy. Or he might realize that he would be intruding—his visit was awkward and I didn't have much time for him. In fact, I haven't really wanted him to visit. I certainly haven't invited him to visit. So it doesn't make sense to feel angry. Knowing that doesn't seem to matter. 

I find that I have a deep reserve of anger, and part of me wants to wallow in it, because the anger makes me feel righteous. I never understood before how anger can feel good.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Anarresti men and asking myself whether they’re all that different from the men here. I wonder whether what Seshap really wanted was to control me. He didn’t want me to go, and he said he would be miserable without me, but once I was gone, he was fine (according to you; he hasn’t written to me). So I wonder whether he wanted me to stay, or he just wanted to make me stay. Propertarian!

I keep thinking about that man Gvadak, at Northsetting. Do you remember him? It was a couple of years ago, but he’s the one who kept following me everywhere trying to get me to copulate with him, even after I told him to leave me alone. And then he finally left me alone after he found out that Vakvar and I were copulating.

Have you ever noticed that a lot of Anarresti men tend to pursue younger girls or women? It's especially obvious when you're 15 and there are grown men or older boys hanging around the dorm.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about all the arguments I had with Shevek over the years. I would start to get agitated, and then he said he couldn’t continue the conversation because I was egoizing, I was too overwrought, I was too volatile. Well, I was a child! Of course I was egoizing and volatile! Not to mention that sometimes he got agitated, too. The thing that bothers me now is that’s exactly what they say here about women who get angry, or even just intensely interested in something, or who won't be quiet—they say _pushy_ or aggressive instead of egoizing, but otherwise it’s exactly the same thing:  volatile, overwrought, too emotional, out of control. A few days ago I met Sei after the literature lecture, and she was talking to a male student. Some kind of difference of opinion about how to interpret something or other (er er er I can't listen to talk about literature either). She looked perfectly composed to me, but after a while he patted her arm and suggested that she go have a cup of _essili_ (a kind of infusion) and try to calm down. If that happened to an Anarresti, she probably would have laughed and asked what are you talking about. But still, the attitude seems not entirely unfamiliar?

I wonder whether, if I’d been a boy would Shevek have responded the same way he did during arguments? I want to think he would, and I don't have any evidence that he wouldn't, but I also have a strange desire, almost a need, to be angry at him. Rage can be so invigorating. But I worry that I'm not getting angry at the right people. Or maybe there are no right people, just a sick system, so I focus on the nearest (male) target.

I hate it when the thoughts go round and round like this. I’m going to give myself a talking to, since you aren’t here to do it.

The men here aren’t all terrible. There’s Francisco. Of course he’s a Terran, but I have been friendly with a couple of his Urrasti friends, and they seem very decent. One is named Saio, and he has asked me some very astute (and not intrusive) questions about life on Anarres. He says the family are Odonians. He doesn’t seem to want to copulate with me—he has a _girlfriend_ who lives in Nio Esseia and he’s always talking about her and asking me for advice on how to behave with her. (Is it strange that I feel that I can only like a man if I’m sure he doesn’t want to copulate with me? I suppose it’s because of that thing with Paii, it’s made me distrust any man who wants to copulate.) I haven’t met the _girlfriend_ , but he says she is a _feminist_ -Odonian, which seems to be a philosophy focused on using Odonian principles to achieve equality of the sexes. Half a year ago this would have sounded very wrong and un-Odonian to me, but it makes perfect sense to me now.

I like the botany professor, too: he’s been very pleasant to me when I speak to him before or after lecture, although he doesn’t call on me in class (then again, I stopped trying decads ago). A few days ago he told me about a wind-pollinated fruit-bearing plant from an arid region of Ve that might do well on Anarres, and he suggested that next term I take the class he teaches on exo-botany. He’s rather young for a professor, and I’m pretty sure he’s homosexual, although of course I can’t ask. Maybe Francisco knows. (When people have to hide, the way homosexuals do here, they develop ways to recognize each other.)

Things are a little better with the statistics professor. He has stopped asking me to stay after lecture. Sei is still meeting me after every class, just in case. I don’t like the way he looks at me.

Also: women here aren't completely powerless. Sei told the _head matron_ about Paii’s behavior. The _matron_ (whose name is Asigo, and I must never forget to call her _Miss_ Asigo) remembered how upset I was when he came to the dorm with me that day. Now he is _banned_ from the dorm. Of course he was never allowed anywhere but in the visiting room, but now he can’t even go there. A picture of him is up on the bulletin board in the foyer, with a note on it not to let him in the door! I doubt he will even try to come to the dorm—he has no reason to, now that he and I aren’t friendly—but I still feel  vindicated, especially since I have heard Asigo say a few very disapproving things about Odonians when she must have been sure I would hear her. I suppose that she thinks that if Paii was too much even for a _fast_ girl like me, then he must be a monster!

It's late, and I haven't been sleeping well. Going to bed now.

 

 _Kaiusa_ _e79_

R2.9.5

I'm feeling a little better today, mostly because I have another worry to distract me from the things I was fretting about yesterday. You will never believe what it is: end of term exams! At first I wasn’t worried about them (they start tomorrow), because the whole idea just seemed so silly. At the beginning of term all the professors went through a whole rigmarole explaining how they would calculate student _grades_ , but I didn’t pay much attention. I won’t need a _grade_ or _degree_ when I go back to Anarres, after all, so I didn't think it would apply to me. 

By the way, here’s something funny: I don’t remember whether I ever told you about the entrance exams I took at the Terran _embassy_ before I started at Ieu Eun? I thought they were like the placement exams at some of the institutes in Anarres, to find out what you know so you can decide which classes to go to? But it turns out that they were actually a _test_ to see if I could go to university here at all! I’m glad I didn’t know that at the time.

Anyway, a couple of _weeks_ ago I realized that almost everybody else was incredibly nervous and worried about exams. People were really on edge in the dorm. If you made too much noise at the wrong time there would be yelling, crying, slamming doors, threats! I began to wonder if I should study too, because I have a couple of reasons to take the exams more seriously than I thought at first. First of all I started worrying that Ruedda would give me a _failing_ _grade_. As I said, he has stopped trying to talk to me, but sometimes he looks at me with a very ugly expression. I’m not sure how much difference it would make if he did _fail_ me, because I won’t be taking any more statistics classes, but Oem says it might make other professors think I wasn’t _up to standard_ and they would be less likely to want me in  their classes. And if the professor doesn’t want you in the class for almost any reason, there’s nothing to do about it. So I started thinking that I ought to do as well as I possibly can on the exam, so as not to give him any excuse to _fail_ me.

Another thing I realized is that the women have another reason to want to get _high marks_ : they want to prove that women can do this kind of work. They want to show that they’re as good as men. And I do understand that. It’s an arbitrary and artificial system, but it’s the one they’re stuck with, so of course they care about it. They think they have to prove themselves. And now I do, too.

I am changing, Sadik. In some ways I feel like the world is closing up, and in some ways it’s expanding. I’m beginning to understand why people here behave the way they do. It’s not just perversity or faulty thinking: it’s an adaptation to a harsh environment. They’re like desert plants: they’re prickly and spiky to defend themselves from predators, they hoard resources because it’s the only way to survive, they wall themselves off and only breathe once it's cool and quiet and safe to open up. I suppose this might seem like a surprising analogy, since it's us Anarresti who are desert dwellers, but I think it's a good one.

The Analogy is a great work, but I can’t help pointing out that Odo didn’t actually know very much about biology.

Don’t worry, I’m still an Odonian. I am not going to study for the stupid exam.

By the time you get this, exams will be over. I will have been judged worthy, or not, of continuing here at Ieu Eun.

I got a message from Dmitri yesterday and am going to visit him during the ten-day term break. Don’t laugh at me, it’s not to copulate. Or at least, not only to copulate.

In Sisterhood,

\-- Pilun.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Have you ever noticed that a lot of Anarresti men tend to pursue younger girls or women? It's especially obvious when you're 15 and there are grown men or older boys hanging around the dorm." This is inspired by 18-year-old Tirin, in chapter two of _The Dispossessed_ : "To hear Tirin talk he was the man who invented copulation, but all his affairs were with girls of fifteen or sixteen; he shied away from the ones his own age." It's not a ridiculous age difference; what I find slightly disturbing is that he deliberately seeks out younger girls. Shevek sees it as symptomatic of Tirin's lack of maturity. 
> 
>  
> 
> "... they wall themselves off and only breathe once it's cool and quiet and safe to open up" refers to CAM photosynthesis, a variation found in some desert plants. Ordinarily a plant takes in CO2, which is necessary for photosynthesis, throughout the day. With CAM photosynthesis, the plant keeps its stomata (pores) closed during the day to avoid moisture loss, then opens them up at night to take in CO2. This CO2 is stored until the daytime, when it can be used in photosynthesis. Pretty cool!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: loooong chapter. But the one after it is very short.

Sadik, District Ro, Domicile 7, Abbenay, Anarres

 _Ailiura_ _e4_

R3.1.8

Things have changed a lot in a very short time. I don’t remember what the last letter was like, but it was probably a mess. I’m sorry. I think I was more anxious about end of term exams than I wanted to admit. It’s embarrassing finding out that I care about something like that.

Before I forget: Sei advised me to switch to a different postal _company_. She says _Blue Star Aerospace and Freight_ is better about protecting the privacy of the people who use it than _Teoia_. She said that ordinarily the _government_ doesn’t read the mail, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. So that’s why the return envelope is a different color. It shouldn’t make a difference otherwise.

I ended up staying at the dorm through the break, mostly because of Sei. I don’t know why I'm having trouble writing this without leading up to a big revelation, but she and I became lovers about a decad ago. It happened very suddenly. And I really do know why I have trouble writing about it: this is actually very dangerous and we have to be extremely quiet about it. Of course that doesn't make sense to worry about that in a letter to you, but I suppose I feel anxious because of what Sei said about the government reading the mail.

It would be worse for her than for me if it came out. I could be expelled and _deported_ , but she thinks the parents would make her go to a mental hospital, which from the way she describes it might as well be a _prison_. It would ruin everything for her, possibly permanently.

You may wonder how I can write that so casually, but believe me, I don’t feel casual about it at all. It’s frightening to be in this situation, but the fear also makes everything mean so much. I don’t know if you can understand the feeling of knowing that Sei is taking these terrible risks just to be with me. I suppose that is egoizing, but ~~it makes me feel so tender and protective of her (and I know that’s propertarian, so you don’t need to point it out!).~~ It makes everything feel  momentous.

It started at the beginning of winter break, when most of the other dorm residents were gone (they start coming back tomorrow and classes start the day after that). Dmitri had invited me to the Terran Embassy during the break, and I was intending to go, but then this started between me and Sei and I decided to stay here. I had to use the telephone to let Dmitri know I wasn’t coming. He laughed when I told him why (I had to be very cryptic about it, in case someone overheard, but he understood right away), and he said he'd miss seeing me but he understood. Then he told me to be careful, and to invite Sei to come with me next time I visit. Besides you, he’s the only person we’ve told.

You are probably wondering what it’s like to copulate with someone who has no body hair. It was very strange at first, because in some ways it made her seem childlike. But she isn’t childlike otherwise! I suppose you can get used to anything.

She is very inexperienced. She’s never copulated with a man, and she says until now the most she had done with girls is kissing and just a little touching, years ago when she was at _secondary school_. (Keep in mind that she is almost 22! I know there are some Anarresti who get to that age without copulating, but mostly they are people who just aren’t that interested in copulation, the ones who stay happily celibate.) So at first she was very nervous. As you know, I have mostly copulated with men, and I was a little nervous, too. But it’s been lovely.

And now I've got ahead of myself, because I haven’t told you how it started! At the end of the term, everybody in the dorm was extremely worried about exams. The last day of exams was _Kaiura e83_. Some people who had already finished with exams had gone home to the families. The last exam I had to take was that day. (Statistics. We find out the _marks_ tomorrow.) That evening there was a tremendous release of tension and all the girls were going around hugging each other and laughing and crying.

There were only five or six girls who were intending to stay for the whole break (it’s ten days), and Sei was one of them. She said it was because the family is too far away, but I was pretty sure that it was really because she didn’t want to see the family, which later turned out to be correct. (This is one of those typical Urrasti things where they won’t tell you the real reason for something and you have to figure it out from clues.)

All of us who were left in the dorm that night had a party that went on until very late. I think some of the girls who were leaving the next day stayed up all night and planned to sleep on the train, but there were also girls who were leaving during the party to catch an overnight train, so there was lots of chaos. Everybody was sharing food and _chocolatl_ , of course, and several bottles of _wine_ , which is a drink made by fermenting fruit juice to produce ethanol. The ethanol content is about 10-15%, which is a lot less than the 35-50% ethanol drinks that they make with distillation. Students are not supposed to have ethanol in the dorm, of course, but people break the rule if they think they can get away with it, of course. I didn’t drink any _wine_ because the smell reminded me of the lab, but Sei drank two glasses (about 400 mL, I think).

Late that night after things had quieted down some, Sei and I and Oem and Iini were all sitting around in the room and talking and after a while Oem and Iini left and Sei and I were lying on the bed on our backs side by side talking about when we were children and comparing stories. And then we stopped talking and I thought she had fallen asleep until she rolled toward me and kissed me.

I was surprised, and I wasn’t sure at first what kind of kiss it was, but of course if a kiss lasts for more than a second or two then it’s obvious. Later I realized that the door had been open the whole time, but luckily by then almost everybody on the floor had gone to bed, so I’m sure nobody saw us. Anyway after not very long she got up and said she had to go to bed, so I said good night and she went next door.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but after a while I thought we might as well talk about it, so I went next door and knocked and asked if I could come in. She let me in and I started to ask her why she had kissed me, because I still wasn’t sure, and then I realized she was crying! Poor Sei, she thought I wasn’t interested. I think she was confused because I was so surprised when she kissed me that I didn’t respond very enthusiastically. And also I think she was feeling shocked at what she had done. 

Anyway, Sei and I worked that out pretty quickly and I sat down and we cuddled and had another long talk, mostly about how she has always felt attracted to girls, and then we kissed for a while. Finally we agreed to talk about it some more the next day, and I went back to the room.

By now, I’m sure you’re wondering if this is really Pilun! Well, yes, ordinarily I would have had all the clothes off both of us as soon as possible. But she was already nervous and I didn’t want to scare her. And also for some reason I didn’t feel like there was any hurry. In the morning we had breakfast and said goodbye to the girls who were leaving, which took forever, and then I called Dmitri. 

Nobody else on the top floor stayed through the holiday, so we didn’t have to worry about being caught, which was an incredible stroke of luck. It was actually a couple of days before we copulated, and the anticipation was more enjoyable than I would have thought. (Yes, I know. I can hear you snickering. I don’t care.) We spent hours kissing and all the clothing came off eventually. And then we spent about two days in bed, just going down to the kitchen every once in a while to get something to eat.

Most of the kitchen staff have a holiday when we have the break, so there are only a few people here and there are no regular meals, but they make porridge and soup and things like that and keep them warm on the stove, and there's bread and fruit, and you help yourself. The kitchen _employees_ are more friendly during break because they have less work and also the _head matron_ is gone. There is one _matron_ staying here through the holiday, and I am certain she has  no idea what has been going on up on the top floor.

The last few days we've been going for a lot of walks and playing a Terran game called _go_ that’s very popular at the university, and that I think you would like. I promise to teach it to you when I go back to Anarres. A couple of times Sei and I have gathered up the other students staying in the dorm (there are five of them) and invited them up for a _finger meal_ , which is a small meal that women of the _propertied class_ sometimes get together to eat in the afternoons (they do it a lot in  The River Walk). Usually they serve little glasses of a distilled alcoholic drink with it, but we didn't have any. Except for Sei, all the girls staying over are from the  _unpropertied class_ and are here on _scholarship_ , sort of like I am, which is why they don't have enough _money_ to go home for the break.

One evening Sei and I dressed in our fanciest clothes (don’t worry, I will not go into detail) and went out to dinner at a _restaurant_ in Nio Esseia, and the whole thing felt like a piece of theater. We were playing the part of sophisticated Urrasti profiteers enjoying an evening of _luxury_. The food was very good.

It _snowed_ a couple of days ago, and under any other circumstances I would probably write a lot about that, because it’s wonderful and strange and makes me intensely conscious of living on an alien world. If you can imagine massive fields and hills of very, very finely shaved ice, it gives you an idea. Snow also has very interesting physical properties. But I’m not sure I have the patience to describe it to you right now. Yesterday Sei and I climbed the big clock tower at the north end of campus to see what the campus looks like under 12 cm (!) of _snow_. Poor Anarresti boots, they were not made for trudging through snow! Fortunately Sei shared a pair of wool socks, which are good insulators even when wet, because the canvas of the boots got soaked almost immediately. I think I will have to _buy_ some proper _snow_ boots.

They had a _snowplow_ clear the main road as soon as the _snow_ stopped, and since then men with shovels have been busy clearing the major footpaths. Sei says in a few days the _snow_ will be messy and dirty and full of footprints. It’s hard to visualize that, because right now it's covering everything with a clean, dazzling white.

I’ve just realized that I never really described Sei to you. She is tall for an Ioti woman, but still half a head shorter than I. She thinks she’s too fat. I don’t agree! She has brown eyes and brown-black head hair that comes down almost to the shoulders (she started growing it two years ago). She has a very beautiful, musical laugh. She seems very open, but she’s good at hiding feelings, which is why I had no idea she felt this way about me, despite living next door and being friends for eight decads. I liked her from the beginning, as you know. She was the first Ioti I made friends with. She’s outgoing and helpful and sort of bubbly and laughing, but underneath that is some deep sadness and self-doubt. She talks a lot, and very quickly (I had trouble understanding her at first), but she knows how to listen, and she's a very astute observer.

So, to sum up: I am incredibly happy, and I’m also terrified. I am worried about how things will be once the other students come back. It seems impossible that they won’t realize that we’re lovers, but Sei thinks that as long as we don’t do anything really overt in front of other people that nobody will say anything, even if they suspect. ~~She is very loud but I think~~  I hope she’s right. Sei was surprised when I told her that Anarresti don't usually kiss or cuddle lovers in front of other people, because it's considered egoizing. She said she thought we would be "more open" than that, which is interesting. So maybe the way I normally act will be fine. Everybody here already thinks I'm strange, anyway.

From now on, every letter will have to begin with a report on whether Sei and I have been caught.

 

 _Ailiura_ _e5_

R3.1.9

I was going to send this off this morning, but then I realized that I hadn’t responded to the last letter you sent and had left out some things I meant to tell you about. Also, I may not have time to write a long letter for a while because I'll be busy when classes start.

Well, no, Takver never said those exact words to me, I was exaggerating, but it's the kind of thing she says. I appreciated what you had to say about living through the drought (which I have to admit seems like ancient history to me) and how that made her so intensely aware of the fragility of the Anarresti ecosystem. That’s very helpful in understanding why she has been so hostile to ideas about modifying the environment.

But of course I understand that the ecosystem of Anarres is vulnerable! That’s exactly why I think we need to introduce more diversity. Anything I tried to do would be very strictly limited and tested over a period of years before we even talked about expanding it. That’s why I want to start with an island, and there would be systems in place to prevent contamination of the mainland with whatever exotics we were trying out. I’m not stupid! I think she should believe in me a little more. But I suppose I should also be more understanding. I hate to admit that.

And, I forgot to mention the other big development of the last decad: I made friends (as far as that's possible) with one of the dorm workers. As I said, things are more relaxed during the break. There are no regular meals, and the students go into the kitchen to get food. Students are not supposed to wash dishes even during the break, but one afternoon I went down to get a piece of fruit and I saw there were dishes left over from lunch and started washing them. This girl came in and sort of scowled (but in a joking way) and said it was all right, but not to tell the _matron,_ and she picked up a dish towel and started drying dishes and we actually talked.

Her name is Laia. I asked if she was named after Odo, and she said it was a common name, so I said that doesn't answer the question and she said well why do you think it's a common name? She's the first person I've met here named Laia, but she meant it's common for girls of the _unpropertied class_. Taviri is a common name for boys (most names here have gender), but not as much. 

You know what's another common name for boys of the _unpropertied class_ , even more popular than Taviri these days? Shevek. I almost exploded laughing when she told me. Later I was thinking that if Anarresti had family names everybody would know I was the daughter as soon as they met me, so I'm glad that we don't. Anyway, they really admire him here. I told Laia that Shevek could be a girl's name, too, but she pretended not to understand me. She did that a couple of times while we were talking, and I finally figured it out but I didn't say anything. I also realized that it's something all the workers in the dorm do: they understand the students and the _matrons_ perfectly well, but if they don't want to answer they just put on a confused expression until you give up. It's a way of protecting themselves. Desert plants!

Laia told me that the reason they hustled me out of the kitchen so quickly that first day was that they knew they'd get in trouble if I didn't get out of there right away! I never realized that someone else could get in trouble for something I had done. So that's why they pretend not to understand, it's a kind of camouflage. It makes me sad to think about, but now that I know I can be more sensitive, I hope. 

I don't have too much trouble understanding Laia, although she speaks with a very different manner (they call it an _accent_ ) than the students and _matrons_. But after the first time I talked to her I realized that I have learned to speak Iotic like a member of the _propertied class_. That seems so wrong, but I didn't even think about it before I came here. I was just learning to speak Iotic, and I didn't realize there were so many different kinds of Iotic—not just for different _classes_ or for people coming from countries where they speak a different language, but people from different regions within A-Io. I started wondering why there are no Anarresti regional _accents_ , maybe it's because we tend to move around so much? And then I remembered that there are some special words that you mainly hear in Southrising, where the miners lived before Settlement. Sei says that sounds more like a _dialect_  than an _accent_.

Laia is about my age and never went to school because it used to be that you had to _pay money_ for it unless you got a _scholarship_ , which was very hard to get. She learned to read and write and do arithmetic from a man who taught her and the brothers in _exchange_ for _board_ (?). Did I mention one of the brothers is named Shevek? Laia says now there is _universal public primary education_ , which means _free_ school for everybody 13 and under, but it didn't become _law_ until she was almost too old to go to school.

She's been working for _wages_ since she was 10 years old and says working in the dorm is a very good _job_ because she gets food and a room and two long vacations a year, and she can use the books in the common room and is learning to speak more _properly_. She's planning to work here for another two years and earn enough _money_ to get _married_  to a boy she likes. It seems to be all arranged, but I had a hard time understanding that part because there were a lot of unfamiliar words. I was surprised when she said she would probably keep working for _wages_ after she gets _married_ , because I didn't think many women did that here, but she says that only women from _wealthy_ families can _afford_ to be idle.

I hope she'll continue talking to me now that the other students are getting back. 

Oh, and I finally succeeded in doing some physical work! Early this morning there were men outside clearing the path that runs by the dorm, and I asked if I could help, and they laughed. And I said I was serious, and one of them said he could use a break and shared the shovel with me. I was already in the Anarresti suit and boots (with wool socks), so I just started shoveling. Apparently giving me the shovel was a joke, because they were surprised! The man who shared the shovel tried to take it back, but I said no, no, no, you need a break, and besides I am an _uncouth_  hardened Anarresti woman! And I offered to show them the muscles. So they all laughed and didn’t try to stop me any more.

Sei went inside and changed into the clothes she wears for going _ice skating_ and _sledding_ and helped, too (she got a shovel from a tool cupboard next to the kitchen that I didn’t even know existed).

Shoveling snow isn’t that different from shoveling shit, except that it smells better and it matters less if a shovelful doesn’t go exactly where you intended. I have to admit that it had been so long since I had done anything strenuous that I'm feeling a bit sore this afternoon. That's what I get for lying around going soft. 

People started arriving back at the dorm this morning while Sei and I were out shoveling and a couple of them helped shovel as well. I think the men decided we were all crazy, but harmless.

 _Marks_  were supposed to be posted at noon today (they put them up on a board next to the classroom door). A group of girls is going over in a little while to see what they got. I feel that I ought not to care, but of course I do, so maybe I will go with them.

In Sisterhood,

\-- Pilun

P.S. I got a letter from Takver saying that she had heard that Rulag died a few decads ago. She must have been about 85, so I suppose it’s not surprising. It makes me feel strange. I only met her once, when I was too young to remember, but it seems significant.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few thoughts on how Le Guin depicts class differences in A-Io. She mixes it up a little, but socially A-Io seems in many ways similar to late 19th century Europe, especially regarding the status of women and personal servants, while the technology is closer to mid 20th century (with spaceships). 
> 
> Most of the men that Shevek interacts with at Ieu Eun come off as aristocrats (including Atro, whose aristocratic background is described in some detail). They are used to living in beautiful surroundings, everything they use is handmade and of fine craftsmanship, they feel a strong tie to the agrarian past, and they're extremely proud of their long, continuous history. 
> 
> The exceptions are the Thuvian physicist, Chifoilisk, about whom we learn very little, and Oiie, who is very self-conscious about his class background: his father was a successful businessman, but his grandfather was a wage-laborer. I have a theory that Oiie's father was disappointed in his son for choosing a respected but unglamorous career in physics instead of becoming a titan of industry; Oiie seems oddly bitter about his father's "success." Vea appears to be wealthier than her brother and it's implied that she married for money and/or status; she barely mentions her absent husband, and she's clearly a social climber. All of this suggests that there are class distinctions beyond wealth that Shevek doesn't see or understand. 
> 
> Efor was not born into service and seems to have come from a background even more impoverished than his current circumstances. The scenes among the working classes, including the demonstrations, are evocative of big industrial cities in the US, circa 1900. 
> 
> I'm positing that after Shevek's visit and the brutal suppression of the protesters there was some movement toward social reform that really got going with the change in government. The Hainish and other aliens were also an influence. Think Progressive era reforms: workplace safety, women's rights, improvements in public health, expanded public education, etc.
> 
> These are the approximate class distinctions I'm using, two of which are taken from the book:
> 
>  _Propertied class_ : landed aristocracy (not necessarily wealthy).  
>  _Rising class_ : capitalists and highly-paid professionals; this is a term that I made up and am assuming is a class identity with a fairly recent origin.  
>  _Unpropertied class_ : everybody else, so it encompasses what we would call the middle and working classes.


	7. Chapter 7

Sadik, District Ro, Domicile 7, Abbenay, Anarres

_Ailiura e12_

R3.2.6

1. Sei and I haven’t been caught yet.

2\. I passed all the classes.

Were you ever going to tell me that Shevek had surgery? Takver didn’t say anything about it in the last letter. Just like her to tell me that Rulag died, but not mention that Shevek has cancer! I only found out because it was in the _birdseed_ newspapers here. Laia showed it to me. I suppose she thought I’d be interested since I’m Anarresti. At first I didn’t believe it, because  _birdseed_ papers really aren’t reliable, but then Sei, who is one of the few people here who knows that he’s the father, said it was on the _telefax_ and I read about it there. One of the Mobiles who was in Abbenay mentioned it to a friend here in A-Io and that's how the news got out. 

At least I know now why the parents are back in Abbenay.

I gather the surgery was a couple of decads ago, and that it was routine, and the cancer is a type that’s treatable, but I wish you had told me before I heard about it like this. It was upsetting, and I wasn’t sure what to believe. 

I don’t have time right now for a long letter (we are in the middle of the  _long week_ ), but please tell Shevek that he’s not allowed to die yet. I absolutely forbid it! I have been living with Urrasti archists for more than a quarter now, so I know exactly how to deal with him. First, I will take all his _money_. Then if he still doesn't do as I say, I will put him in _prison_. So you see, he has to  _obey_ me!

\-- Pilun

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting this about a week after Ursula Le Guin's death, so, although this chapter is pretty cheerful, I'm in mourning. I've been reading and rereading Le Guin's work since I found _A Wizard of Earthsea_ at the library when I was 11, and then not long afterward found _The Left Hand of Darkness_ in my dad's science fiction collection. This last week I've been pulling books off the shelves to read my favorite of her stories.
> 
> Of the many tributes that have been published over the last week, [this](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/25/ten-things-i-learned-from-ursula-k-le-guin/) is one of my favorites.

Sadik, District Ro, Domicile 7, Abbenay, Anarres

_Ailiura e21_

R3.3.5

Not caught! I relayed the message you sent to Sei and she was pleased and amused. I think it meant a lot to her, since she can't tell the family about me. She said she wishes she could meet you.

Before I go on: I know it’s too soon to expect a reply to the last letter, but of course I’m still anxious for news about Shevek!

Thanks for not lecturing me too much about _finger meals_ and going out to the _restaurant_. I can tell you’re restraining yourself, and I appreciate it! Will it make it better if I tell you I have discovered that _finger meal_ has a sexual meaning as well? It seems obvious once you think about it. There are several words for meal in Iotic, and the one used in _finger meal_ means a little meal or a treat. I wonder if I missed what was going on in some of the _finger meal_ scenes in  The River Walk. I didn’t realize until I was more than halfway through the book how cryptic some of the language is. Urrasti are always hiding! I will have to reread, although who knows when I will have the time.

Sei and I have less time together now that classes have started, but I’m very happy, and I think she is, too. She bounces. In some ways our relationship hasn’t changed much, we were already spending a lot of time together before the break, and we were in and out of the rooms so much last quarter that I don’t know if anybody notices a difference now. But I can also see what she means about people not saying anything even if they figure it out. Urrasti are capable of pretending not to notice things unless they’re right in front of them, and sometimes even then.

WARNING, this is about clothes, but please don’t worry, there’s a point to it. When I _bought_ the red and grey suit I didn’t think about how buttoning down the back would mean that I’d need help getting dressed in the morning, because I’d never had a top that buttoned that way. So whenever I wore it I would go next door in the morning so Sei could button me up. As a result, if I’m with her first thing in the morning, people don’t assume that I was there all night. She also helps undress me, which can be fun. (Have you ever done this with a lover? I’m used to just getting naked right away.) Clothes here are complicated, there are lots of fastenings in odd places and they wear more underthings than we do, so getting dressed and undressed takes more time than you'd think. It used to annoy me, but now I'm used to it. 

Classes are going well. I love exo-botany—about a ~~decad~~ _week_ ago I experimented by raising a hand in class and found that I am not invisible and inaudible! I’m trying to get Oem to speak up in class because she is better at botany than I am but she says she can’t (not won’t, can’t). I say she can. For the moment we are at an impasse.

[written in margin: I am always saying decad when I mean _week_ , or the other way around. The decads are too short here, that's the problem.]

Some of the alien plants we are studying are bizarre. There is a great variety of Terran desert plants because even before they ruined the planet they had some huge deserts larger than any Urrasti deserts. There are also a lot from Ve. Both planets have succulents that can grow extremely tall (20-30 m) and look like trees, with branchlike outgrowths. I’ve only seen pictures of them obviously, but the botany professor (his name is Avarsalan, which Oem says is Benbili in origin) says he is trying to get _funding_ from the university for an exo-botanical garden that would include things like  _saguaro cactuses_ (Terra) and _buranNnov_  (Ve), and other even stranger plants (sketches in the margin, they are real plants I promise). Many of the Terran plants are extinct in the wild but they still have seeds in the seed  _bank_ or grow them in botanical gardens to preserve species. 

I am also taking the second quarter of ecology with the same professor. This quarter we are studying freshwater ecosystems, which I admit might not be so useful on Anarres, since we don’t really have any, but who knows what I’ll learn? We spent most of last quarter on broadleaf forests, which we also don't have on Anarres, and I think that some of what I learned is applicable. Except for the oceans, there really aren’t any ecosystems on Urras similar to Anarres, not even the deserts. Francisco is in the class again. So is Paii. He hasn’t spoken to me, but he doesn’t seem to be working very hard to avoid me, so maybe he’s gotten tired of being so angry at me. I hope so. Not that I want to try to be friends, but even though he was in the wrong I hate to think of him stewing for such a long time.

Introductory microbiology is turning out to be interesting. Some of it is review for me, but there is a lot of fascinating exo-microbiology that we have had no access to on Anarres until very recently. We need to find some alien biologists who want to teach on Anarres so we can catch up! 

You know, the Anarresti settlers were probably wrong to try to get rid of so many microbes. They kept out a lot of pathogens, but they must have got rid of some useful bacteria along with the pathogens. Very little was known about human microbiomes 200 years ago (some of the aliens already understood the importance, but that was long before contact). I wonder if anybody has surveyed Anarresti microbiomes (gut, skin, mouth, genitalia, etc.) for comparison to Urrasti. Probably not. I will write to Pashag about it, she could probably get something started. Or Kvater. I hope they’re both still at the Central Institute. We could learn a lot. There could be things like deficiency diseases or skin rashes or even cancers (!) that might be partly due to a lack of microbial diversity.

The lab equipment is newer and much better than I’m used to. I didn’t notice it so much in botany last quarter because most of the equipment we use for botany is not new tech. The dissecting scopes are newer and cleaner and easier to use than I’m used to, but otherwise basically the same. I mean, a lens is a lens, and a scope is a scope! But in microbio some of the machinery is very different from what I’ve used before, and they just expect you to know how to use it from previous schooling, but Oem is the lab partner and is helping me. We were going to be partners in exo-botany lab, too, but Prof Avarsalan assigned all the partners and I think he deliberately split us up, I’m not sure why. Anyway, the lab partner is a ~~boy~~ ~~man~~ boy named Maera. He seems to be okay; no uncomfortable looks or questions, at least. He’s very focused on the work and so far we get along.

Do you remember how much trouble we had getting the _S-beam scanning micro-imager_  for the Institute in Abbenay? They have two here and they both have better resolution than the one at home, but Oem says they are obsolete and will probably be replaced next year. I wonder what will happen to them. Will they be _sold_? Sometimes Ioti _donate_ old things to _charity._  Of course Odo disapproved of  _charity_ , she said it propped up the existing power structure. Still, isn't _charity_ a kind of sharing? I would rather see the equipment shared than ... what else would happen to it? Would they pack it away in a box? Would they destroy it? I don't even know.

Not only is the equipment good, but there are technicians who maintain it. Also, they automate a lot of things that we do by hand. As long as I’m here I will not have to make growth medium or pour a single gel or petri dish, which seems rather like not sweeping the floor of the single myself, but I’m used to that now so I suppose I’ll get used to the petri dishes being poured for me, too. And I mind it less when it’s a machine doing the work for me, instead of a person. 

By the way, you would think that a petri dish would be like any other petri dish, but the ones here are made of something a lot tougher than the borosilicate glass we use. I dropped one on the tile floor during the second day of lab and it didn't even crack. 

I do have more work this quarter because there are labs for two classes. But I’m finding it easier to cope with men because I’m beginning to really understand and enjoy the women’s world of the dorm. And Sei, of course.

 

_Ailiura e22_

R3.3.6

I just reread the letter from you and realized a couple of things I meant to tell you. First, you’re wrong: Terrans do have body hair. But it’s patchy. The only Terran I got a really good look at naked was Dmitri, so he will have to stand in for all Terrans. I don't think he'll mind. Around the crotch and armpits he has at least as much hair as an Anarresti. He has less hair, but still a noticeable amount, on his chest and belly. He also has some on his arms and legs, but it's sparse and fine and hard to see. He says that's pretty typical for a Terran man, though there’s a lot of variation—some of them have almost no body hair, and some have nearly as much as we do. Women generally have less body hair than men, but again, there’s wide variation. Most of the men and some of the older women have hair on the jaw and around the mouth, not very much, and they usually shave it.

As for how _grades_ work, you might be sorry you asked. It’s a perfect example of how hierarchical systems cause excremental behavior. The possible _grades_ are 1 (the best _mark_ ), 2, P (pass), and F (fail). They put up all the _grades_ on a big poster next to the door of the classroom. It’s all arranged by _grade_ , with the 1s on the top, so everybody has to scan for the name. I discovered that it’s better to get there after  _marks_ have been up for a couple of hours because if you get there early there’s a big crowd and it’s hard even to see the poster. But people don't just look for the _mark_ and leave, they stand around talking about the _marks_. The whole system seems designed to make people anxious and competitive. If you get a 1 or a 2, everybody knows and congratulates you, and if you fail everybody knows about  that.

From what I could see, between half and two thirds of the students in each class get a P. Only about 20-25% get a 1 or a 2, and the rest fail. I got a 2 in botany lab and P for everything else. (Oem got 2s in botany and botany lab and was so thrilled I thought she might faint.)

The way people treat other students who have failed is bizarre. To the face they say things like oh I’m so sorry, don’t be discouraged, that sure was a tough _final exam_ ; and then when the person is gone they laugh or say things like serves him right for not studying, or what a screw-up, he drinks too much (this means ethanol), he’ll never get his _degree_. It’s horrible.

And even students who aren’t in the same class and have no reason to look at the poster ask what _marks_ you got! The girls in the dorm were talking about  _marks_ for  two solid days, and I’m sure that if I’d paid attention I would know what everybody in the dorm got in all the classes. If anybody asked me I’d say I passed everything, but if Oem was there she would say oh but you got a 2 in botany lab. And people think they ought to admire you if you got a high _mark_ , as though you’d accomplished something worthwhile.

Sei says things are a little different in literature and some other subjects than in the sciences—fewer fails and also fewer number grades. Why? I don’t know. She says it’s probably department tradition.

Anyway, I passed everything, which is all that matters to me. I promise never again to mention what _marks_ I got unless I fail something, which would have an effect on me so I couldn’t ignore it.

I was going to wait until I’d heard from you about Shevek before posting this, but I think I’ll just send it off now because I can always write again when I hear from you.

Your Sister,

\-- Pilun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't care how advanced your microbiology is: you will still be using petri dishes.


	9. Chapter 9

_Ailiura e25_

R3.3.9

Not caught! I think from now on I will only report at the beginning if we are caught.

Today I got the letter you sent on R3.3.2. That was fast! This will probably be a short letter since I just wrote to you.

Thanks for reassuring me about Shevek. I feel a lot better now. Do you think the cancer is related to all those years he was in the Dust? I suppose there’s no real way to know.

I understand why you didn’t think you should tell me, but please don’t do anything like that again. If there’s news, I want to hear it as soon as possible. You might even try to figure out how to send a telegram. Doesn’t the Syndicate of Initiative have a way to do that, as long as someone can _pay_ at this end? I will try to find out how I can set up an _account_ to do that.

You must admit, contact with Urras does have some good aspects, like treatment for cancers that would have been deadly or debilitating ten or twenty years ago!

Yes, yes, all right, I know I should write to Shevek myself. And I will. I should have time next free day.

Did you know that lung cancer isn’t very common on Urras? Cancer in general is uncommon, but the most common one in A-Io is colon cancer but I will not make a joke about excrement, even though I sort of want to, because it’s not funny. Francisco says that lung cancer is quite common on Terra, maybe even more than on Anarres because of all the oncogenic particles in the air. In fact, all kinds of cancer are common on Terra, more than any other known world. That’s why most of the standard cancer drugs, even here in A-Io, are Terran or modified from drugs they developed. The Terrans are doing a lot of useful work trying to clean up the mess the ancestors made.

Sei and I have been talking a lot about childhood and family. It started a while ago, with that conversation with Sei at the end of last term, just before she surprised me (!), and then of course after the news about Shevek. She and I both feel at odds with the parents, ~~but for completely different~~ …Actually in some ways for similar reasons. Both of us are doing things the parents don’t approve of, and both of us have older siblings who stepped in to help. Talking with her about this is very freeing. I can say things to her that I know many Anarresti would find disturbing, even you. I think she feels the same way about talking to me.

Sei grew up in a family with one older brother and two younger (none named Shevek). They all lived together in the same dwelling with the parents and _servants_ , and the children didn’t leave until they were 14, to go to _secondary school_. That’s normal here, for boys of the _propertied class_ and the _rising class_. Sei was unusual in going away to school at all, very few girls of any _class_ continue studying after age 13. Those teenage years—going to school, living in a dorm—are probably when an Ioti life is most like the life of an Anarresti of the same age. But Laia says boys and girls of the _unpropertied class_ generally stay with the parents until they _marry_ , unless they have to move to get work or live in as _servants_ , or if they get _scholarships_ for _secondary school_ or university.

Laia is still talking to me, but if Sei or any of the other students join me she immediately shuts up. I was going to say I don't know why, but of course I do. Desert plants.

Sei is of the _propertied class_ , but she says the family isn’t _rich_. (Laia says of course they're _rich_. I'm beginning to realize that this is a very subjective term.) The eldest brother will  _inherit_ from the parents, which means he gets all the  _property_ when they die, and he won’t have to work for _money_ unless he wants to. The other boys will have to get _job_ s. The parents expect Sei to get _married_ , preferably to someone of the _propertied class_ who is _rich_ enough not to have to work for _money._ It’s all right if he works as long as he doesn’t  have to.

But I keep wondering: if a person doesn’t work or go to school, what do they do all day? Even most nuchnibi do some work, just not regular work. I think that the Iotic word that we usually translate as work is really closer to kleggich.

Of course Sei doesn’t want to _marry_ but she can’t tell the parents all the reasons why not so they have a lot of arguments. I suppose they’d have even more arguments if she told them all the reasons. They can’t force her to _marry_ , but they can make life very difficult for her if she doesn’t. She says one of the reasons they allowed her to come to Ieu Eun is that they hope she will find a _husband_ here. But not a student: a professor. A _wealthy_ one who doesn’t live on his _salary_.

Sei was shocked when I told her that I left Abbenay by myself at age 11. I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. I explained that it’s unusual, even for Anarresti. Most children I knew stayed in the same place as at least one of the parents, or some other primary adult, until they were at least 13 or 14. And since the family was much closer-knit than most Anarresti families it was a bigger disruption for me to decide to do that than it might have been otherwise. Sei asked didn’t they try to stop you, and I said yes of course we argued about it a lot and they tried to persuade me to stay in Abbenay. She had a hard time understanding that they had no power to prevent me from going.

Yes, 11 is young to make that kind of move all alone, and looking back I am a little surprised that I went through with it. When I first told the story, Sei assumed I had gone to live with you, in the same dom. Obviously I did go to Northsetting partly because you were there so if I was lonely or needed an adult I could go to you. And when you went back to Abbenay it gave me an excuse to go back, too, which by that time I wanted to do. It’s funny, I don’t think you and I ever really talked about any of this. Did we? I'm just starting to realize what a difficult child I must have been!

The strange thing is that you and I spent so much time with the parents, we depended so much on them, more like an Urrasti family than typical Anarresti. That was true even after we stopped being such pariahs. It was even more true for you than for me, because you had more years of it. And yet you never seemed to resent it. Why not?

Shevek and I used to argue so much (at least I argued with him, or tried to argue), but I don’t even remember what we argued about, or not much of it. I think the basic problem was that I didn’t want to be his daughter. Not that I didn’t want him as a father, but I didn’t want everybody to see me as his daughter. I resented the way people treated me because of him. From what Sei says, that’s true here, that children of a famous or notorious parent grow up in the parent’s shadow and have to struggle to get free and make their own way. They have to find themselves and make an identity separate from the family. She says here it’s even a bit of a cliché. But on Anarres, it's freakish! You were the only other person in the whole world with the same problem.

But it wasn’t just that. I’ve been thinking about a particular argument we had, when I said I was going to Northsetting and Shevek started talking about Rulag in a very self-righteous way, and I practically exploded. I said that he had left us to go to another world before I was two, without knowing if he’d be able to come back ever, and how exactly was that better than what Rulag did? Looking back I’m sorry that I said that. It’s one of those things that’s true, but not helpful, and that you can never really take back. And after all, he did return from Urras, and after that he was with us more than most Anarresti parents are. That was one of the last arguments we had before I left for Northsetting. I don’t think I ever apologized, even a few years later when we were trying to mend things before they left for Liberty Bay. I should.

Anyway, Sei’s relationship with the older brother sounds in some ways like the one between you and me. He was always interceding with the parents, trying to explain her to them (and them to her), trying to make peace between them. They are very close in age, though, only a year apart. Sei says that’s a good thing because if he’d been much older then he would have been away when she needed him most. He helped her persuade the parents to allow her to go to _secondary school_ , and she thinks if it hadn’t been for him she would never have been allowed to go to university, even to look for a  _husband_.

But she’s even more afraid of him finding out about the relationship with me than she is about the parents finding out, because she’s closer to him than anybody else in the family, so if he reacted badly it would be worse. She can’t stand the idea of him disapproving or being angry at her. It’s sad that she has to worry about it.

Well, this is turning out a lot longer than I intended. I hope it makes sense, I'm a bit sleepy. 

In Sisterhood,

\-- Pilun

 

_Ailiura e26_

I got a letter from Shevek today. I assume that you urged him to write, because this is the first time he’s written to me except notes on letters from Takver. It’s a good letter, a brotherly letter. I don’t have time to write more now but I wanted to let you know.

\-- Pilun

 

 

 

 


	11. Appendix: Calendars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff I noticed and stuff I made up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much is said in _The Dispossessed_ about the calendar. I haven’t gone through the text with a fine-toothed comb, so I hope I didn't miss anything major.

**Stuff I noticed**

 

**Time and space relative to us**

Einstein's work is "several hundred years old." Terra is 11 light-years away.

 

**Solar year and day length**

The solar year, which of course is the same for the twin planets, appears to be approximately the same length as a Terran year, at least judging by the characters' maturity at different ages. Urras and Anarres also appear to have the same or very similar day length, and both seem to use a 24-hour clock (which honestly I think is a world-building fail, but nobody's perfect).

 

**Ioti Calendar**

Note: no other national calendars are mentioned, but presumably they exist.

In chapter 4, a year in the tenth millennium is written as IX-738, that is, 9,738. (The Roman numeral “IX” presumably represents a non-decimal numbering system in the Ioti tradition.) According to this section, the settlement of Anarres began in IX-771, with emigration continuing over a period of 20 years. We know from the short story “The Day Before the Revolution” that Odo died just before the Insurrection that led to the founding of Anarres. In chapter 3 of _The Dispossessed_ , we see her gravestone with the year of death 769, suggesting that the prefix "IX" can be dropped from the date, even on something as permanent as a grave.

According to chapter 5, the university of Ieu Eun has a long holiday in the mid-autumn.

There are some hints in the text that A-Io uses a 7-day week. Oiie says that his grandfather, a janitor, worked 6 days a week, so the week is at least six days long, but more likely seven (unless his grandfather never got a day off, which is possible).

Oiie says his grandfather worked 10 hours a day, which presumably reflects a typical work day for a person in a menial position in A-Io.

The clock seems to be divided into two 12 hour intervals (similar to our AM/PM).

 

**Anarresti Calendar**

According to chapter 8, Sadik was born in the Anarresti year 164 (or possibly late 163). In Chapter 12, which seems to take place a few months before Shevek goes to Urras, Sadik is ten. Thus, I place Shevek’s trip to Urras during the year 174. Years are obviously counted since settlement. This is consistent with something Shevek later says: that it has been a century and a half since the last ship brought the last settlers to Anarres.

Pilun turns two while Shevek is on Urras, so the age difference between her and Sadik is eight or nine years.

Anarres uses “decads” (ten-day “weeks”) as a basic calendar unit, and there are occasional references to “quarters” as something longer than decads, presumably referring to quarters of a year.

One Anarresti holiday, Insurrection Day, is mentioned as taking place in the summer. The people of Southrising, where miners were already living when the official settlement of Anarres began, are mentioned as having some feast days of their own.

In chapter 4, Rulag notes disapprovingly that the hospital in Abbenay needs more staff, since some doctors and nurses are working 8-hour days. Thus, the typical Anarresti work day is somewhat shorter than that. In chapter 6 we are told that, beginning at age eight, after three hours of school, Takver worked three hours a day at the mill in her town. All together, this suggests that on Anarres a six-hour work day is typical.

The 24-hour clock is not divided into halves.

 

**Stuff I made up:**

 

**Time and space relative to us**

I set this fic in the year 2488 AD, which may be a little further into the future than Le Guin intended but is probably not earlier. The first ansible was built 13 years before the time of this story, and assuming that instructions for constructing the receiver end were immediately radioed to Terra, that would mean that there has been ansible communication for about two years.

 

**Solar year and day length**

The solar year is very slightly less than 361 days. Both planets occasionally need to drop a day from the calendar to keep the calendar aligned to the solar year, but since the Anarresti day is longer by a few minutes, they drop days on different schedules. More on this below. 

 

**Ioti Calendar**

Though there are multiple calendars used in Urras, the one originating in A-Io is also used by the CWG and the various alien embassies and consulates. The calendar used in the late tenth millennium is about 400 years old and is a rationalized version of a much more irregular traditional calendar. (In the old calendar, among other things, the “quarters” were all different lengths.)

This calendar consists of four 88-day named quarters with numbered days. The additional nine days of the year are placed between Maiiura and Kaiura as A-Iiwe, the autumn holiday. Thus:

Kaiura (88 days, autumn)

Ailiura (88 days, winter)

Oiiura (88 days spring)

Maiiura (88 days, summer)

A-Iiwe (9 day holiday; autumn)

The abbreviation for “day” is “e,” which approximates the initial phoneme of the Ioti word for day.

The autumn equinox is on or around (depending on calendrical adjustments) **A-Iiwe e1**. The year begins on **Kaiura e1** (Anarresti **R2.1.6 or R2.1.7** ). Note that because the equinox is on the first day of A-Iiwe, none of the quarters corresponds exactly to a particular solar season, but they’re close enough that people don’t worry about it. Urras has only about an 14-degree axial tilt, so seasonal shifts are less extreme than Terra’s.

Most public buildings and many businesses are closed during A-Iiwe. At one time this was a deeply religious holiday (the best analogy would be Judaism’s High Holy Days), but by the tenth millennium its religious aura has fallen away, and it’s mainly thought of as either a vacation, an opportunity to make money off tourists, or a holiday that your boss insists you work through, dammit—depending on one’s circumstances.

Thus, **Oiiura e76** is the 76 th day of Oiiura. If the year is included it is placed at the end of the date, e.g. **Oiiura e76 771** or the more formal **Oiiura e76 IX-771.**

By tradition, every seventh day is a “free day,” but this is not standardized, so there is no universal “week.” The work week is defined individually by businesses and institutions, so free days are staggered. The system ensures that most businesses, especially retail businesses, are open every day (except possibly A-Iiwe). The main exceptions are schools, universities, and small, family-run businesses. The staggered work week has long been an important labor issue since the staggering of free days means that working families rarely get their free day all at the same time.

At Ieu Eun and most public and private schools and universities, the first and last five days of each quarter are holidays; thus, there are 10-day breaks between quarters, except for a longer (19-day) holiday between Maiiura and Kaiura (incorporating the last five days of Maiiura, the nine days of A-Iiwe, and the first five days of Kaiura). Term begins on e6, and the first free day of each term is e14. Thus the term starts with eight uninterrupted days of classes, often called "the long week.” After that every seventh day is a free day. The five-day end-of-quarter break begins on e84.

 

**Anarresti Calendar**

The Anarresti calendar also divides the year into quarters, both because it’s a fairly rational system and because it was modeled on the calendar of A-Io, where Odonianism originated.

The year is broken into four 90-day numbered quarters, each further divided into 9 decads. By tradition, the tenth day of the decad is the “free day,” although many people take tenth-day work assignments.

The date format is year.quarter.decad.day. Example: **Gv185.R3.7.2**. (Gv and R approximate the first phonemes in the Pravic words for year and quarter, respectively, and no, I will not speculate on how to pronounce the Pravic phonemes rendered as gv and kv.) Often dates are expressed simply as a sequence of numbers: **185.3.7.2** is the second day of the seventh decad of the third quarter of the year 185. (Note that this means it is the 62 nd day of the quarter. Ordinal numbers, argh.)

The tenth day of the decad is indicated with a non-numeric symbol or a symbol made up on a whim. Often it’s just left off. Thus **R1.9.#** **R1.9.** **‡** and **R1.9** all represent the tenth day of the 9 th decad of R1, also known as the last day of the quarter.

First day of the second quarter: **R2.1.1**

Tenth day of the first decad of the second quarter: **R2.1. &** or **R2.1**

Last day of the second quarter: **R2.9.%** or **R2.9**

This system, of course, leaves one extra day. Insurrection Day, the first day of the year, is placed between **R4.9** and **R1.1.1** (Urrasti  **Maiiura e1** or **Maiiura e2** ). Sometimes Insurrection Day is spoken of as belonging to R4, the 91st day of the quarter, but there’s no standard way to write this date. Often it’s written out or is abbreviated as RR.

The year is generally included in the date only when needed to avoid confusion (so it probably wouldn’t be included in letters, for example).

Anarresti don’t pay much attention to birthdays (basically none at all after they become adults), since there are no rights or responsibilities determined by calendar age. If you ask an adult Anarresti how old they are, they may have to think for a moment before answering.

 

**Adjustment to solar year**

Anarresti days are slightly longer than Urrasti days, but they maintain the 24 hour clock by making the increments slightly longer rather than adding more minutes; in other words, Anarresti minutes and seconds are slightly longer than Urrasti minutes and seconds. To rationalize the solar year with the calendar, each planet periodically drops the last day of the year: Urras drops **Maiiura e88**  once every 7 years and Anarres drops **R4.9.^**  once every nine years. Thus, the two calendars don’t line up exactly the same way every year, but because Urras drops more days of shorter length than Anarres, eventually the two calendars synch up again, approximately. Note also that the difference in day lengths means that the synching of time zones on the two planets changes from year to year, with Anarresti time zones moving forward at a rate of 3 hours every 4 years, if my arithmetic is correct.

In the year X (Anarresti 229), a year designated “Brotherhood,” referring to greater cooperation between the two planets, a system is developed to clean up the last remaining discrepancies of minutes and seconds.  ~~~~

Note that at the time of this fic, A-Io is only a few decades short of the year X. It would be surprising if there were no millenarian movements surrounding this date.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's where all those numbers and letters at the beginning of each epistle come from. Now you know.

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned at the beginning, this is a work in progress. I have been itching to get some feedback on it, so I'm posting the first several chapters. Constructive criticism is welcomed and appreciated!


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